Natural Music

(for Robinson Jeffers)

The rocks, the sun, the valleys, and the trees
Speak louder than all the voices of the poets,
Drowning in ocean tides and the songs of birds,
Daring us to unlearn what was once to be human,
To be separate from the world—
Engulfed again in the music of the wind,
Blowing against the wind chimes and the leaves,
In the storm calls of the seagulls
And the defiant flight of the storm-petrel,
Discovering our true purpose
To reconnect among the living,
And bury the dead—
Looking out like curious children
Upon the lavish pageantry of nature.


  October 9, 2021
--Alexander Shaumyan