New Guinea Nightsong

They sat around the fires at night,
And tuned their drums with wads of sap;
The snake skin heads sang in return,
And told us all that all was well.
Each night a mother's heart I heard
In beating drums, and fell asleep at peace;
And do so still, as I recall those drums
Though half a century has passed.

Born in what is now one of the newer countries of the world, Papua New Guinea, I now live in Shoreline, one of Washington's newest cities. At 61, I love to write poetry more and more the older I get. D. Lothar Pietz