I Hear Them Calling

Strange voices, but not off key

thousands, but all in harmony.

I can hear them calling me.

All past versions of what lives with me.

Each having their own bit of complexity,

to the song that is sung,

describing what it means to be free.

I can feel the sound

coming up from the ground

emanating from deep down

a song sung by souls of those

who walked this ground in years past,

The first ones to find the rhythm in

the soil and lyrics among the trees.

Wisdom of generations passed on

by the vibrations in a song heard when

you find yourself out where the world

hasn’t been touched and is still green,

where the air is quiet and if you hold still

you can hear the Earth breathing in and out,

keeping rhythm for the song sung by all things

living even by those who have passed on.

And one day that song will catch up with me.

I’ll run as fast, but I know it’s my turn to rest.

I’m just afraid that my best won’t

ever be as good as the song was to me.

Mike Eastburn says “One day no different from the rest I woke, though I didn’t know who I was yet. Even after the slap on the rump. Seems like I was just getting how to walk when the school bell rang and everyone around me took off. For a while I would trip and stumble, but I’ve always had two friends, I called mother and father who always were there to help me up, dust me off and point the right way. Who I am today just hopes for the chance to pass on all the things those two taught me.”

Poet’s Corner is curated by Bucks County Poet Laureate Tom Mallouk and supported by a grant to the Bucks County Herald Foundation made possible by Marv and Dee Ann Woodall.

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