The midnight highway
Is a symphony,
Each blaring car horn
A bell to tow you home
When you’d really
Rather not go.
Miles tunnel behind,
Vague, whispering hillsides
Pushing the wild of their weeds
Against flashy neon billboards,
And all those plastic-paper worlds,
A perfection nothing of you:
An anonymous in spinning wheels.
All the bright, angelic omens
Of on-coming headlights,
Kindred souls touching the earth
space
Of one another in a quick passing
Between the veil of dark and metal,
Someone you might have loved
Had you known them
In the flesh and pupil, hair and
hands;
Only, now you’ll never know.
And sometimes between
Mountain peaks and tired trees,
The moon might wink
A solemn stare
Into your pre-lit dashboard,
Across the velvet of your seats
Where you hover somewhere
Between this surreal night-time
dream
And the reality of waking up,
All ten-knuckled and too tired
To care which way
The next road-sign leads,
Only that, inevitably,
You’re still going somewhere.
Written from a prompt at Magpie Tales.
Wow! Let the moon wink, let it get serious ...as long as it keeps you awake, knuckled fingers on the wheel of where you are going. Strong evocative images.
ReplyDeleteI long for a wink of the moon! Every line more vivid than the one before, I feel my own fingers blending upon the wheel....and white-knuckled, on those far too often icy roads!
ReplyDeleteOnly that, inevitably,
ReplyDeleteYou’re still going somewhere.
That's it! One does one's own thing. Go anywhere and savor the goodness there is, at any time of the day.Great write Stacy!
Hank
'had you known them' is, to me, the pivot from the internal present, to the pensive ache of memory - and yet those final two lines give us relief. ~
ReplyDeleteIn a word, intriguing. And very well done.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this one. Here's my favorite bit:
ReplyDeleteIn the flesh and pupil, hair and hands;
Only, now you’ll never know.
And sometimes between
Mountain peaks and tired trees,
The moon might wink
A solemn stare
Into your pre-lit dashboard,
Across the velvet of your seats
Yes , an overwhelmingly lonely , atomising and isolated little habit we humans have lately got ourselves into, No ?
ReplyDeleteThe idea of passing someone that we might have loved was an interesting idea. I like how the flow of this poem coincides perfectly with the feel of being on the road and "still going somewhere."
ReplyDeleteI love the notion of oncoming headlights as angelic omens...wonderful write as always...
ReplyDelete