Evolving Consciousness

You killed the me I would have been

I took the hurt like water takes stones

Whether pebbles or boulders they all sank

Left their ripples fading, but sank

And I ran like a river

Singing and sparkling silver

Wild and deeper than dreams

And I wrote my story on the land

Told it with the stones I tumbled

Until all their edges wore away

I made of them sand and poured them in the sea

And I found the seed of me swimming there,

Cast careless to the void.

I had been formless

Now, naked, new, I divided

Splitting open, doubling over, growing

Gills and fins and vibbrissae,

Three eyelids and closing up my ears.

I paid tribute to my rivered past,

My song calling sailors to their graves,

Until one day a sailor came who stood forth, resolute

I took his hand.

By journey's end I learned to walk,

Pacing the deck, breathing softly

In a world too loud and bright and I'm still waiting

For my whiskers to fall off

There are no sharks here, just a home

And a wide wood behind the garden

And a good man who keeps the bears away.