A POEM BY CAT RABIN
Water Ways
You have been around the world one thousand times you have been
Through the grasslands above the river valleys you have
Set your footsteps in your stead you have set far above
Elder forests your eyes move about with life upon and through
old branches filled within and without voices forming voices fading
rushing out to meet the crashing waves that close in from the blue
and breaking sea upon the beaches wandering forms into the caverns underneath
the rocks
Have you traveled in your time with marvel guiding as on wings to look along
the way you came to find the rushing river swells along the rapids between
meanders teeming with living scores of partakers
You have been around the world one thousand times you have been
Upon the glaciers moving invisible above the frozen fissures melting streams
under the weight of ice melting in the sun flowing through and flowing out
moving stretches moving through time and destination
Into the rocks onto the mountain tops dressed up in spruce decorated with
pine revered among decendants of walking, flying, swimming pioneers of
daylight custodians of night far along the common path nearer to the secret
place
Have you heard the territorial wail rising in pursuit of trespassers not
heeding sound or sight or silent blinding instinct through the camouflage
myriad engulfed in brown and green upon the branches between the rocks inside
the hollowed out shelter in a log
Among the towering cliffs cradled within the clouds embellished side to side
with willows that droop like fallen faces reaching out to the rising
maples that stand by steadily breathing in and sighing out holding life among their leaves sheltering flowered ones thisled ones bigger ones
tiny ones