Life's Drum

From the beginning there were drums,

beating out world rhythm --

the booming, never-failing

tide on the beach,

the four seasons,

gliding smoothly, one from the other;

when the birds come,

when they go,

the bear hibernating

for his winter sleep.

Unfathomable the why,

yet all in perfect time

Watch the heartbeat in your wrist

-- a precise pulsing beat

of life's drum.

-- Jimalee Burton (Cherokee)

quoted in In Beauty May I Walk . . . (Exley Pub.)