Amongst Giants

Amongst neck craning eye squinting giants

foot steps crunch deep years of leaves and bark.

Steep banks tell tales of joy and woe,

silent red brown water slides past

topped by pelicans gliding

surveying the stranger.

Great red giants with girths of many steps

speak scars of other times

of canoe and coolaman, bowl and shield

of axe and saw, and wire barbed.

The silence brakes with fish splash

and fills with birdsong

Wind stirs leaves whispering a rustling chorus.

Sprouting twig dried leaves, dropped limbs

too hard to hold against raging storms

echo in their shape the sound of impact,

great red tears scream down mighty bodies.

Dappled shadows form cooling colonnades

the shadows revealing hidden worlds

each breath a magic vision

Stories told

Homes for those past and not yet here.

The stranger sits in, on and with the giants

Is held, nurtured, soothed.

Expansive river water slides on

Surface twinkling

A silent enduring presence.