To get from here to there,
say the Aborigines of Australia,
you need a song.

Follow the songline
and everyone you
meet on your journey
will be your brother
or your sister.

The earth is crisscrossed
with my songline, with yours.
I stop and wait
for you to cross
as I listen to your song
and sometimes we sing
as one.

The songlines
are vanishing—
erased.
I walk forward a step
and listen for the rhythm,
a prompt for the next verse,
but am met with only silence
and the echoes of my own footsteps.

The sprawling oak-tree-song
has succumbed to the axe;
the fishing-lake-song has
been drained of its
life-giving waters.
Birds-songs sound distant now.

Without the songlines
we drift without a guide,
without a compass—
I think, I hope, they’re still there,
hidden,
waiting for a voice to sing
them back.


**Inspired by Bruce Chatwin's book 'The Dream Songs.'

Sonny Rainshine

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/songlines/