Dippy

It bared it's teeth at me and sang
Of a world long past
A history that not even memory could withold
A time surpassed and guessed at
By men with trowels and toothbrushes
Digging and scraping
At the no-longer-bones that were longer
Than anyone had seen before.

It spoke of wildness and wilderness
Thunder-hoofing the horizons
And roaring the sunsets to oblivion
And though not bones
They were imagination
No more real than the cardboard fort
But still the smells shone through.

It grew smaller over the years
No longer awed overhead but at eye-level
But still it sings like a giant in my heart
Striding back to the remembered past
Of childhood and inspiration
And something far older
That was a forever away.