~~~
"But I’ll know my song well
before I start singin’"

Bob Dylan
"A Hard Rain A-Gonna Fall"
~~~
thought this poem down years ago,
while hiking in a nature preserve,
never wrote it up,
never knew why

I'm a
top-of-lungs shower singer,
a hiking poet,
dripping italicized words from the
four corners of mine eyes

my voice,
*****,
my song,
a work in progress,
my brain, says,
challenge,
asking

how dare you sing words,
you know
that I know,
don't know your song well,
well enough,
to start singin'?

the flowers and the fauna,
sea grass, lagoon, deep forest cover, beach,
butterflies hiding in bamboo stalks,
the deer, the fox, the chipmunks

all start laughing at me

"look upon us,
a single preserve
is our shelter,
a thousand years in the making,
our song has hardly begun
we are a forever
work-in-progress,
just like you

so sing of us, sing of you,
learn the chords as you go along,
finger the word notes,
try out variations,
realize this unfixed change,
is all of us
preserving

that friend
is indeed,
your song

you know it
well enough,
that's why
you have
never stopped tryin' and never stopped
singin'
~~~

July 2012 ~ 2015
Mashomack Preserve|The Nature Conservancy,
Shelter Island, N.Y.












    






~~~

http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/hard-rains-gonna-fall#ixzz3gFdhKEW1