To get from here to there, <br />say the Aborigines of Australia, <br />you need a song. <br /> <br />Follow the songline <br />and everyone you <br />meet on your journey <br />will be your brother <br />or your sister. <br /> <br />The earth is crisscrossed <br />with my songline, with yours. <br />I stop and wait <br />for you to cross <br />as I listen to your song <br />and sometimes we sing <br />as one. <br /> <br />The songlines <br />are vanishing— <br />erased. <br />I walk forward a step <br />and listen for the rhythm, <br />a prompt for the next verse, <br />but am met with only silence <br />and the echoes of my own footsteps. <br /> <br />The sprawling oak-tree-song <br />has succumbed to the axe; <br />the fishing-lake-song has <br />been drained of its <br />life-giving waters. <br />Birds-songs sound distant now. <br /> <br />Without the songlines <br />we drift without a guide, <br />without a compass— <br />I think, I hope, they’re still there, <br />hidden, <br />waiting for a voice to sing <br />them back. <br /> <br /> <br />**Inspired by Bruce Chatwin's book 'The Dream Songs.'<br /><br />Sonny Rainshine<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/songlines/
