Land of the Giants

I feel so small in this cathedral
of Douglas firs looming in the fog.
Each rain-soaked tree is a world
of living, breathing green,
cragged barks, spoked branches
hung bright with shaggy moss.
The massive timber columns
tower darkly through the clouds,
above a land of sprawling ferns,
fronds large enough to blanket me,
to dust my every square inch
gray with smoky spores.
Across the emerald forest floor,
banana slugs, pale yellow,
slick with rain and mist,
stretch longer than my hand,
thicker than the stick
with which I stir their trails of slime.
I find a ledge of fungus
deep and strong enough to sit on.
I run my hands through clover,
each three of leaves large enough to glove
my outstretched palm with green.
Overhead, birds as black as night
and twice the size of crows
glide between trees and puzzle over me.
Silence is broken only by the rush
of wind through needled branches
too far up to see.

Scott Speck
06/24/2002