The Journey

I never catch them at it

just suddenly

it’s dark enough

and everything has changed.

The roadside elm starts it

when he rises up to warn me back

with pale raised arms

then the pleased humming look

of berry bushes

like fat friars

about to get their way

and the artful way the grass has

of sprigging about their feet, like parsley.

Even this clean road

rests lightly in its groove

quiet in pursuit of its objectives:

ramps, turnoffs, towns.

Six slick tires

spin tight circles

over black tarmac

roaring away behind

lakes appear, cast copper coins

then a town, then no town, past

then another, where

all things are changing hats and habits

(they’re really at it, now)

The garden rake

tines up

waits for feet

the garden hose

wriggles

in arch new complicity

as a barn wood fence, that knows better

shrugs off domestic duty, lights a fag

and slouches at his post

they all

wink at me, then

look away, looking busy.

Even my watch keeps a secret. Yet

I’ll get there. This trip

will superficially resemble

its sunlit brothers, will deposit me

where I claim I want to go.

I look far up into the rumpled hills

(darker than the sky)

Where tiny, bright, the lamps that dreamed

coiled above our heads all day

refuse to say tonight

if they shelter in their staring skirts

the same house I left his morning.

The bus rumbles. I do not trust this road

making its move at last from the valley’s nadir

up into the heights. But I have no choice:

I want no other.

© Larry Haworth 1983