THREE DRY RIVERS

The headlights reveal the large giants

Three thousand five hundred years old

And yet alive.

Covered with inch deep red bark and history.

What is the meaning of my being here?

Why don’t I listen to my child and turn and flee?

Instead, I will have to eat the food, and drink the drink.

Shrink! As the giants continue to grow.

Still alive.

I am not weak

I am strong, but why the test of strength once again?

The hope was to have fun.

It would be so much fun to stand at the feet of the giants

and breathe the air.

Am I not supposed to be here amongst the giants?

Is there a song to be learned?

from the swooning bats, the echoes and

the hushed voices of the murdered natives

who summered here often long ago?

Once more passed the moonlit forest.

Once more to cross the crowded moonscape below

I hold her close. The flash of remembrance in the darkness,

only to follow her down into the depths of loneliness.

What is the lasting message?

None of us are giving or getting?

The ending is here

Or is this some kind of beginning?

I can not seem to get out of this mistake

It grows larger as I run from it

The nightmare is over as we speed to the rising sun

The gloom lingers on.

My child sleeps in the back seat, safe and wise.

In the afternoon still awake but unconscious.

Tears will come dry and empty so like the three rivers dry and empty.

A sign of the coming horrors.   

Unknowing of the deeper meaning of the long ride

before the tears, before the natives fled, to die.

The tall threes are the only witnesses to the tragedy, and they are angry too, silent, yet alive.   

As the giants sleep in their still dark ancient forest

Now far behind us so large and looming

They alone can see into the very empty hearts that visits them for fun.