William Barnhill

Rock lies cold and still within the barren isolation of these grasslands.
Overhead, ravens are in flight.
Their song reverberates from canyon walls;
As if to resurrect the voices of spirits long since departed.
Below, a stream's cutting force has coursed its way;
Exposing ancient stones of another time, of another world, of another
order.
Huge trident forks, lying frozen in stone, mark a creature's trail;
These giant strides were measured tens of thousands of millennia before;
The first blocks were squared at the base of the great pyramids;
Before our ancestors first stood erect upon the plains of Africa;
Long before humankind was God's diversion.

The rising sun chases shadows into each large depression;
Accentuating their purpose, from heavy heel to deadly dagger claw;
Leading off into the layers of time towards Pangaea;
A place only alive by the gift of the fossil record and the grace of
imagination.
All evidence that their world existed seems far, far away;
But in this place something stirs alive a vision;
A vision filled with vast herds of placid giants;
Slowly ambling, grazing by the shore of an inland sea;
Unaware of the presence of their nemesis, the hulking beast;
The killer with jaws of death and the merciless empty eyes of a predator.
Hunting from the cover of primeval forest's edge, it stalks;
Waiting for the moment of attack;
When serenity will make way for the collision of titans;
Embracing in a mortal struggle.
Sending lesser creatures fleeing from the conflict;
Trumpeting roars, gnashing teeth and cries of death echo across an
ancient landscape;
Causing all living things far off in the distance to pause and
listen............

The silence of the canyon floor is not easily broken;
To bear the truth that it has seen.
But for now, one can only ponder about the makers of the tracks;
Imagining the size and power of these creatures long since departed;
Reveling in the wonderment conjured up by the visions of the ghosts of
the stone.

A dust devil plots its whipping way;
Pausing upon a giant track disturbing the soil within;
Gathering it up before the early morning breeze;
A monstrous dusty form begins to materialize;
With claw and dagger teeth it reaches out............then fades as quickly as
it came;
Dissolving away on the wind, back to the floor of the canyon;
Back to the stone from where it came;
Back to the world of Pangaea.