Fossilized Photographs

Looking down a chunk of a tree, peering through the rings.

Blurry death lying silently alone.

Streaks of sunlight pierce the canopy, intruding into shaded eyes.

Petrified edges diverge across a crumbling span.  

Fire from the sky reaches down and scars life.

 

 

The sun flies high in the early summer sky and pierces through the canopy of the thirsty trees. Mirages of moisture evaporate in the searing heat and the Earth itself crunches under my pensive feet as I explore the ancient valley of petrified giants. An ominous sign sticks out in the sand: the pale white de-fleshed skull of an unknown animal bears silent witness to the violence this land harbors under the passive breezes and serene dells.  Through a graveyard of pinecones lies a stump corrupted by a missing chunk that reveals its inner secrets. Rings whisper of eons past, serving as memorials to the life that once inhabited the tree; a life forfeited to the ages leaving only the headstone of inert matter to betray the fact it ever existed.

            Beyond the stump there lies another, one prehistoric in its genesis. The creation of vulcanite destruction, these ghosts of majestic, towering giants stick from the ground like fingers of mineralized wood reaching from within the Earth, grasping for heavens with gnarled knuckles, bending back upon themselves. Across one of the outstretched tentacles is a crack complete in its span athwart the massive trunk. The chasm seems to grow before my eyes and I can hear the creaking as it diverges inch by inch.

 Above the tree millions of years dead, stands another that’s very much alive. Craved into its trunk is the brand of God: a scar from fire from the sky. The smell of searing sap permeates the stifling air. Such are the sights seen on an afternoon walk in the ancient valley.