Speak to me, Shenandoah!   
   You're old, and I am young.   
   In valley down below   
   And all your hills among,   
      
   Dinosaurs have once roamed,   
   With open, hungry eyes;   
   Mammoths made you their home   
   Amid the sheets of ice -   
      
   Taller than Mount St. Helen   
   You once stood on the earth;   
   Reaching and touching heaven -   
   Through all the death and birth   
      
   You towered, proud and mighty,   
   Seeing and knowing all,   
   Parted and yet united -   
   Each mountain and the whole -   
      
   Seeing trees grow and wither,   
   Animals live and die,   
   Thunder, tornado, blizzard -   
   Elements you defy,   
      
   But stand, evincing shadow   
   In the sun's morning rays   
   Over the forests, meadows,   
   And in the time and space.   
      
   You stood here when the red man   
   Hunted and roamed the lands,   
   When the wise, painted shaman   
   At bonfire, in a trance,   
      
   Healed ailments and diseases,   
   Arrows and spears dislodged   
   And contacted deceased ones   
   And spirits in sweat lodge,   
      
   And when the white man landed   
   And drove the red man hence,   
   You stood in pain and sadness   
   But let the life advance.   
      
   The ages have eroded you -   
   The water and the wind;   
   The workers have exploded you   
   Railways and roads to build -   
      
   You are worn out, tired,   
   Shadow of what you were -   
   In forests you're attired   
   Now, as you were before   
      
   In ice caps. Appalachia!   
   You've seen and known it all -   
   The vagaries of nature,   
   Tsunamis in man's soul -   
      
   Both ignorance and wisdom,   
   Both viciousness and bliss,   
   The muteness of deceased ones,   
   The symphony that lives   
      
   In people and in nature   
   In oceans and the skies:   
   In beauty and in danger   
   Life grows and multiplies -   
      
   For millions of years   
   You stood and saw and heard   
   And caught life unawares   
   Like, in a trap, a bird   
      
   And wrung from its beaked mouth   
   The universal song:   
   You are the life's storehouse!   
   The planet's skeleton!   
      
   All lived, died, decomposed   
   And left its dust in you -   
   There resting in repose   
   Under the sky of blue -   
      
   And as you see and know   
   The world, both old and new,   
   My teacher - Shenandoah -   
   Give me your wisdom too!   
      
   https://sites.google.com/site/ibshambatpoetry   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)