The Giant

He was 8 feet thick and 200 feet tall. He was the giant of the forest. For 500 years, he played with the Wind and smiled at the Sun. Birds and squirrels nested in his branches, and deer lay in his shade. He grew taller and broader year after year. He stood against the storms, and the cold of winter could not hurt him.

But one day some men said, "There is so much of him. He can heat our houses. Let us fall him."

The men came with saws and axes and hammers and wedges. They chopped a hole in his side and then they sawed. The giant put all his weight against their saws so that they could not move them. The men took wedges and drove them into him and then they could move their saws some more. The giant had no defense against their saws' wedges. Finally, the men sawed all the way through him -- but he would not fall. Again the men took wedges and drove them into where they had cut through him -- but still he would not fall.

Night came, and the men went home. They would return the next day with bigger wedges and heavier hammers. The giant knew that he would die. He was angry.

"These men will not make me fall," he said. "I will not let them. I will call my friend the Wind."

"What is it, friend?" asked the Wind.

"Sing for me," begged the giant.

"I will," said the Wind.

And the giant fell.

-- Vincent Hauth, Ashland, Oregon, 1982