Giant

Suffer me, my sleeping friend,

to rest a while in the shadow of your woody nave,

And take sanctuary among the fallen leaves

This day, friend (there – I said it again!)

is too hot for me

And I’ve wandered

farther up this wild trail than wisdom would counsel

But I wanted to know

I wanted to see, no – to feel

the company of giants

And take communion with nature

in the shadow of their grace

So, by what conceit do I claim the title “friend”?

can I, even in our own way, ever know you,

or you me?

We live in worlds too different,

each spanning dimensions the other could not dream

(and do you dream?)

While you have stood here, in place

for no more than a summer’s reverie

I have circled the globe;

Flung myself above the sky,

and peered below the ocean’s depths

Stood whispering desert dunes,

and moaning mountains of arctic ice

How much I have seen of this world,

while you have tarried here

For nothing more than a moment of your day

Then let me tell you those stories:

The tales of a traveler on the broad surface of this earth

– it won’t take long

And then, having again exhausted my shallow breath,

I’ll sit back, resting against your cool damp bark

And listen

to the stories I dream you tell – are always telling –

to those who take the time to hear

Of your travels in this place

through a time of which I can’t even dream

(and do I dream?)

How, when you were young (as was Justinian, for a moment)

the rains were good, and sweet,

How the fires came that shaped you

this fold, that bend

And the fleeting countless

buzzing, pecking, crawling and burrowing

you sheltered and nourished without care

How our civilizations came, and passed,

like a summer day

Yes, it was dry for a while, but then…

…the sweet rains came again

And ever you stretched your arms aloft,

an inexorable sun salutation

Striving only to breathe the air,

drink the dew,

and feel the light of the heavens upon you

…

Once, many years ago,

I walked the length of your fallen comrade

Laid low nearby, long before my birth

And marvelled, as I sweated the boggy hillside

on which he lay,

At how long it took just to reach the crown:

There is more than one way to explore this world

…

But here we are: strangers

One moving through time, one through space,

crossing at this single point

One at home in time, one in space

Meeting in a space and time too narrow

to happen again by chance

And yet, somehow,

I want to call you “friend”

though honestly, I have no deeds

by which to claim that mantle

To be fair, we each simply do what is in our nature

how could it be otherwise?

Is gravity friend to water?

Only pulling it downward, where it deems best

according to habit, ritual,

and the incalculable beauty of equations that order our universe

It is the way, yes,

But “friend”?

That jay camping in your boughs,

The downy woodpecker,

not so easily startled from his work

They each do you more service than could I

Not out of friendship, or love

(and do they love?)

But again, of their nature,

So – and yet…

The rabbi once told me:

we do not pray because God needs our prayers;

God needs nothing

We pray, he said, because we need to

Placing chapped palms against you as I rise

to look up once more

before setting on my inevitable way

I wonder if this is not the answer:

Turning to face the dusty path ahead,

I look back,

And call you “friend”

one last time,

Because I need to

[18 Mar 2009 – On one of the last days of my sabbatical (my grandfather’s birthday!) I was headed back from a morning surfing at Santa Cruz, and decided to take the long way home. Ended up detouring to Big Basin State Park, which is a spectacular expanse of redwoods and deep forest that makes Muir Woods look like a schoolyard. Picked up a map at the ranger station and took a few hours getting lost on the Sky To Sea trail.]