Robin Maunsell
Antidote
For hours now we have rolled down
this long motorway corridor of even sound
to a turn-off that has us nudging
a landscape of dark hills and the boles
of even darker gnarled trees our headlamps
dust hideously with light. If we were outside
ourselves we’d hear our arthritic climb
over these humps and through these woods
and lose the sound of ourselves as we sank
to yet another sunken village where
a pub sign, if it had the heart, would
creak in the wind. In our heart of hearts
we know we have a destination because
we set out with one from wherever we came
and, if so inclined, could mouth it against
a too-early or too-late taken slip road.
this long motorway corridor of even sound
to a turn-off that has us nudging
a landscape of dark hills and the boles
of even darker gnarled trees our headlamps
dust hideously with light. If we were outside
ourselves we’d hear our arthritic climb
over these humps and through these woods
and lose the sound of ourselves as we sank
to yet another sunken village where
a pub sign, if it had the heart, would
creak in the wind. In our heart of hearts
we know we have a destination because
we set out with one from wherever we came
and, if so inclined, could mouth it against
a too-early or too-late taken slip road.
Page(s) 42
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