Lori Rosolowsky: Music

While on a bicycle trip in the Canadian Rockies, I saw a large sign for the “Great Divide” that led to a little stream. I stood in the stream and realized that the smallest ripples determine whether a water molecule ends up in the mouth of a Pacific salmon or under a barge in the Atlantic. Likewise, apparently random and insignificant events can determine the direction of one’s life.

I am walking the stream of the Great Divide
Walking the stream only eight feet wide
Walking the stream whose water will glide
To places impossible to know.

I am standing on the rock of the Great Divide
Standing on the rock only one foot wide
Standing on the rock whose edges decide
Which way to make the water flow.

Will it travel west or east?
Will it bathe the land or be released?
The smallest things determine fate
The smallest things I appreciate.

I am facing the fork of the Great Divide
Facing the fork with a view so wide
Facing the fork with my legs astride
Wondering which way to go.

Should I venture east or west?
Which direction would be best?
The smallest steps determine fate
The smallest steps I contemplate.

But now it’s just me at the Great Divide
No more down the middle, I’m choosing a side
Turning my back on the path not tried
Heading down a one-way road.

Did that step bring more or less?
Years from now I can only guess
The smallest steps determine fate.
The smallest steps I appreciate.

Walking the stream of the Great Divide
Walking the stream of the Great Divide
Walking the stream, I was walking in the stream
Of the Great Divide, the Great Divide
Why don’t you walk that stream with me?
Come along and I’ll show you what I see
In the stream of the Great Divide
Come on, come on, come on along with me
Come on, come on I’ll show you what I see

The Great Divide, the Great Divide