I walked in the redwood forest.
An eerie landscape, home of giants -

Though I never saw them
their presence was felt.

A giant footprint, a smell of something left behind
haphazard cooking;
forest mice and other vermin.
Beetles for texture. Pinecones for flavour.
A meal for someone not really fussed.

This evidence of sordid ordinary life aside,
there seemed to me some kind of
telepathic transfer
in the air.

Though never truly malign,
the message came to me quite clear: The intruder here
was me.
And though I only touched the fringes of the giants' home
and though my visit seemed accepted, for a while,
if I behaved
it seemed to me that something roused
the more I ventured
through the forest, past a clearing, see the gorge!

And that a force of nature, something uncontrolled
could take me over,
if it chose.
Body lost to giant way of life,
soul to giant thought,
mind to loss of words.

To have the forest take me over.
Eat. Dwell. Not really care.
What life would that be?
A life I'm truly glad has not belonged to me.