When Trees Were Giants [poem]

Before the world carved paths through us,
we belonged to silence.
Not the kind grown heavy in grief,
but the hush of tall trees watching over
wide-eyed children with dirt on their knees.

The night did not frighten then.
It wrapped around us like an old friend,
soft with the breath of summer wind
and songs sung by wind chimes
dangling from unseen porches.

The fireflies pulsed like forgotten stars,
echoes of a sky we hadn’t yet lost.
We ran without purpose,
laughed without reason,
and time…
time held its breath for us.

In those overgrown woods,
the weeds did not choke—they sheltered.
And we were wild things,
sacred in our simplicity,
unaware of the weight
the world would one day ask us to carry.