The Giants are Sleeping

I dream of

Gods who are seen, but never heard.

Those warriors of old in tombs of their making;

Towering high above man,

Hidden away in a deep slumber.

In days long ago, those kings of gold,

Whose heads were high above the clouds

Ruled over the land and their will was law.

Their steps quaked the ground, sending all to their knees.

Those goliaths who rattled bones and trees.

Despite their power, they tended well to the land.

The forests were their gardens;

The wild animals were their companions.

They stomped valleys and rivers into existence;

They stomped hills and reefs into being.

Despite their size, the wilds thrived under their care.

Species bloomed in the forests they created,

And the reefs they fashioned became nurseries.

The fields that formed their beds became grasslands.

The deserts they cried into became oases, repites from the heat.

Their chilled breaths formed clouds and fog;

When they blew it formed breezes on warm days;

Or torrents to knock away storms.

Their hulking forms gave refuge from rain and snow,

And their bodies gave warmth to those who called them home.

When humans first arrived to the world,

The giants tended to them as all other life.

They saw their intelligence as a gift

And passed down all their wisdom.

Humans became the wards of the giants.

As humans tilled their first fields,

The giants showed them to keep nature safe.

As they traveled the seas,

The giants blew wind in their sails.

Under their guidance, man discovered the world.

Trusting the humans with their knowledge,

The giants watched the setting sun with pride.

Humankind had inherited their wisdom;

Perhaps they will inherit the earth as well.

To tend to what the giants cared so much for.

Era bygone

The giants grew tired as the sands of time drifted,

And one-by-one they made beds of the ground.

They laid their heads to rest, flesh turning to stone.

Their great empire ended; their kind vanished from the earth.

Great kings buried by dirt and forests and springs sprung.

Animals claimed the land as their own

And the giants became gods anew.

Legends were formed of their might

And of their power.

Then, from the ashes of their ruin sprung man

Folk always seen and always heard.

Conquerors of a once quiet world,

These new rulers of the land,

Who made their rule law.

They level the hills and bury the valleys,

Splitting the land with their roads and mines.

They chop down forests and burn the wood into clouds of smoke

In their hovels of wood and stone upon fields of harvest.

Monuments to their conquest.

The rivers and oceans choke with trash and plastic;

The reefs die while man continues to pollute.

The forests are leveled into farmland,

And the species face extinction.

Even the sky is not safe from man, being ripped apart.

They burn the world, denying the damage they do.

Instead, they believe in false prophets,

Who claim their salvation comes from wealth.

Yet what is wealth if it is upon ash and bone?

What is a world of smog and destruction?

Even the giants are not safe from man,

Those who find their resting bodies.

They build palaces of gold and marble,

Forgetting whom they build these on.

From there, they smoke their pipes and drink their wine.

One day, the earth will sunder;

And the giants will return.

Their wrath will be the stuff of legends.

Cities and kingdoms will fall,

And man will be reckoned on the day they awaken.