Adventure in a dark forest
The dark giant trees cut off the sun.
The stream ran by in a gully, now small as a puddle, now wide as creek.
We climbed pieces of old forest that lay across our path.
Thick fallen trunks stuck intricate roots emmeshed in soil into the air
And reached the other side.
We were like children in an ancient decrepit garden
Stepping gaily up the path.
Skirting mud, we made our way beneath the rusted girders of the bridge,
The solid cement legs now crumbling in the moistened air,
The distant trestle quiet, waiting for a train.
We held hands to ward off evil spirits
And boldly went towards the far off lights,
The slopes on either side now looming
An unnamed threat of falling earth and sliding stones,
The menace of the blackened cliffs.
And then we gasped to see
The skeleton of a prehistoric beast athwart a blasted pine,
The smooth white skull and lightless socket for the eye
That was not there, yet transfixed us with its stare,
As if the tree had peeled to show the creature at its core.
As if the trees are hiding bones from dinosaurs
Within their wood,
Which emerge as the trees themselves just rot away,
Leaving bleached remains of animals
From a world so old where even we were young.
We turned back
The apparition standing there had warned us off.
We turned around and strolled to where the path began.
Behind, the valley narrowed towards a point we did not reach.
Before, it opened to a plain in grass, a broad expanse beneath the sky.
In open air, our breath returned
The heavy humid load that lay upon our heads was lifted.
One last slope remained, the shifting soil of shale and crumbling rock
Uncertain floor at each and every step,
The risk and thrill of falling.
The lidless eye within our minds, we joined our hands.
Like birds or angels, we strode forward onto gray clouds
And fell to earth like bliss.
The birds flew in circles round our heads.
We lay full of life on the ground, looking up, and smiled.
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