Before the spurred skin of Grendel came, 'his brutal blood caked claw';
before the drifting murderer, Cain... what forces raw
gathered in the belly of monstrous Time,
and aimed up for softer fires...
A giant's swell of dirt and rain and sun and oh! that nasty carbon:
Has there yet been a splendid monster more
than you, oh mighty, damned Sequoia?
Without a sound or painful cry, was there unnatural birth
Of ozone given to the sky, as blue was given the ocean
More wide than any land?
What mad assembly of prowling bones wove terror in the night
and raged for hellish ruin?
Instead you dared to venture forth another gnarly beast,
to take some gentle kind of breath and crown the meek spectacular!:
it were no burly bear competing - whose strength and muscle
rippled into men's stories and children's ware:
it were no whaler conquering wild seas or deep-down fearsome creatures
shivering the waves...
1/8th an inch of seed and a giants swell of dirt and rain
and sun and oh, that nasty carbon - holy mother of a tree!
Sequoia - you colossus:
without a sound or painful cry, the first Atlas of the sky
shouldering the ages, walling off the knifing winds - you enormous thing!
But holy mother of a tree:
can you withstand the warring cross-cut gone berserk
at your knees?
