Friday 9 October 2009

Listen by Rae Spencer

Can you hear the whales?

Long slow sea chanteys
Rhythm paced by the meter of waves
Graceful arcs of melody
Race with neap voices
Toward the shore

Living swells of tidal muses
With curls of seafoam tresses

Refrains shatter into salty spray
Spill notes upon the sand
And slip inside wind

In graceful prism arcs
Whalesong leaves the sea

To lisp among trees
Where rustling leaves
Keep company with time

Can you hear the wolves?

Long slow forest choruses
In unnamed minor keys
Filled with promised futures
Hunger weaves through molting trees
Down and down to seas

These breathing moonlit muses
Swell their throats with lore

A choir of hunters
Eyes and ears and tongues uplifted
Return the sea’s salt voice

An ebbing echo of whales
Rolls across the shore


And between these native singers
All the wisdom born in time
Falls with autumn’s leaves


Rae Spencer, Virginia, USA

2 comments:

Crafty Green Poet said...

Rae Spencer says: "I am a veterinarian and writer living in Virginia. My poetry has been published in The Powhatan Review, The Chaffin Journal, and The Healing Muse."

Karen said...

This is really lovely. I feel the movement of the waves and the wind and hear the songs of the forest and the sea.