All This Music

They say that flowers are also songs,
and the sun, and the ocean-blue sky
on clear bright days. The chipmunk
is a song, and the squirrel, and so the
hare. The fox also, and the bear, and
the wolf with his long speckled fur.
The wolf's piercing amber eyes are
songs when the slick rabbit falls into
his sight, and the rabbit's thumping
gallop through the underbrush as he
hurries toward life is also a song.
Cucumbers and tomatoes are songs,
and pineapples and raspberries,
and the moon is a song as it hangs
high in the sky, over forest or ocean.

The mountains of my homeland are
songs, and the pines which speckle
them, and the firs, and the maples,
and the silvery birches, and the sheer
countless birds which roost in them.
Not only their calls, but they them-
selves are songs as well, in how they
soar, and dip, and hop; in their
countless-splendored plumages.

The waterfalls in my mountains are
songs, and the dinosaurs' footsteps
baked into the slanted rockface are
songs, and my life is also a song,
albeit a sad one of many notes.

I must remember that my life also
has worth, because I sing in it.
Life is far, far too long to spend
entirely in lamentations.


Published in Young Ravens Literary Review, Issue #19, December 2023
---posted 9/26/2024