Andy Craven-Griffiths
With no return bus from the bobsled track I set off on the long walk back to Innsbruck.
Soon I realise this is the forest where night lives.
Somewhere nearby must be a girl in a red coat
and just beyond that a gingerbread cottage.
The streams whisper something in German as
I stoop for their chilling freshness. Hours pass
and I know night will be daring to seep inkily up
from the shadowy blur of converging lines above me.
I walk on, kicking a pine cone,
nobody knows where I am.
Night has been here so long without being discovered
and the locals are fools for believing it is merely
the sun’s absence
and not something closer.
Somewhere nearby must be a girl in a red coat
and just beyond that a gingerbread cottage.
The streams whisper something in German as
I stoop for their chilling freshness. Hours pass
and I know night will be daring to seep inkily up
from the shadowy blur of converging lines above me.
I walk on, kicking a pine cone,
nobody knows where I am.
Night has been here so long without being discovered
and the locals are fools for believing it is merely
the sun’s absence
and not something closer.
Andy Craven-Griffiths comes from Leicester, and is currently studying English and Philosophy at the University of Leeds. He was joint winner of the Manchester poetry festival slam in October 2004.
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