THE GIANTS

"For I would ride with you upon the wind,  and dance upon the mountains like a flame..." -Yeats

I saw the Giants today. I saw them ride upon the hooves of a thousand horses. I saw them run up the bare faced rock  into black clouds . They vanished beyond  the darkness. There was   a thunderous roar. The Giants came to life. 

Then silence. Such silence as I have never heard. Just the sound of snow geese , calling  from up high in a forgotten pasture where  the Giants  herded them.

Then  the mountains roared to life once more. Giants puffing and huffing  along the sky. Stretching their rock legs. Kicking  the last  patches of snow aside.

"I have found a dream of beauty at which one might look all one's life and sigh..." -Isabella Bird

Those  sleeping giants, in our dreams all of these years. Like drops of flame from the dying sun, their enchantment charms and fills our thoughts.

As rain  choruses down on the rocks,  from  the caverns  dredged out by the Giants. They who must work so hard to prepare for winter's  wrath. Their mournful calls cling.

The  mist in the end,  covered all. Taking the thunder and heat with it. The Giants blew their  breath  through the valleys, cooling the way  for the leaves to change.

Like Pompeii in the old days,  one of the Giants roared his name that could not be spoken. He despaired the coming  of  twilight days.  In his loneliness he pleaded the time of sleep. Others answered.

"I ascended the mountain to hear the voice of God, and was answered in voices from afar..." -Meeta Ahluwalia

The Giants rose one last morning, when the sky was  the colour of roses. Ready to do battle. But  there was to be no battle. The snow geese had fled. The skies settled.

Mingled rains, were banished.  The Giants  breathed one last  moment in the light.

For now there was a  snap in the wind. And the Giants  sighed  and made their way to their lairs. 

To sleep in the long nights that would be coming. Before the dawn.  Before the snow geese would return.....

"The Giants slept.  In the quiet. As darkness fell. As in the beginning. World without end.." R. Raphe 

 Photographs 2023