Early light, gray-green smells.
Spruce leaf drips and spider jewels.
Moss and toadstool, orange caps,
crowns of fern, lichened rocks
High on hill where I wait,
watching smoke spiral, wafting,
from the cottage far below.
Hear me, hear me human one
in your lair by the stream.
Listen for my quiet calling,
drifting, drifting morning mist.
Quiet, quiet I will come,
where the cedars touch the ground.
You will see me through the stillness.
You will hear your spirit call.
Pensive, raven womankind,
you will reach across the ether.
Breath and breather, thought thinker,
waiting in this raging silence.
You will learn to hear the forest
shout a message to the wary.
Deep within me waiting, waiting
floating eyes glow bright at night.
Soon you will be part of dreamtime.
Where you learn to quietly listen
to the cougar crouched in thicket
still as rock on mountain side.
I will call you. Hear me, hear me,
let your mind run river free.
Wind will carry thoughts like water.
Tawny cougar calls you, calls you.
David Garlick, Victoria, September, 1995