From Beyond

We felt it first, faint as raindrops on the world,

but distinct, as animals sense distant tremors.
Something enormous and impossible had risen
and was nearing from out the tremendous black,
from the fathomless depths of the night ocean,
approaching our sleeping city by the sea.
The bay had been shrouded by an eerie fog,
a voiceless harbinger of the terrible visitation.
Its waters moved, displaced by the unknown,
by unseen forms and forces, unexpected presences.
 
The weight of unimaginable hooves fell upon the crust,
the low, thunderous beat of titanotheric tympani.
The waters rippled, the earth gently trembled,
the scent of prehistoric mists filled the gloom.
Then we beheld the wondrous, awful sight,
as the gigantic green-gray shapes emerged
from the abyss of night and time:
   the towering Brachiosaurus,
   the neverending Diplodocus,
   the colossal Brontosaur.
 
The titanic beasts waded up from the deep,
unsummoned yet dreadfully arrived,
shaking the earth beneath their fantastic feet
and all our earthly certainties.

***

Steven Holland
October 6, 2006