Waterways

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