The road at night.

The Road at Night.

This old car smells like warm bread, and like our dreams.
In the distance I make out the hazy humps of half imagined hills
Rolling forth like fruit on the platter of life.
The grasses are someone else's spilt milk
Lavender and oats and barley and rye.
And this road is everything.
I watch it unfurling,
The tarmac river
Of who we are,
Where we are going,
What we hope to become there,
A galaxy of lost and founds.

The sky is starred in petrol station patterns,
The windows let in the breath of the ghostly plains.
The map is fluttering on my lap,
Along with my own bird-like hands.
We are now restful, hushed,
In personal, late night softness
Each turning inward and keeping the journal of memory,
We are together
In this engine-broken night silence
For a time that will never be repeated,
But is infinitely more precious than all those heartless
treasures.
We will always be anchored in these timeless minutes

I want to tell you all how much I love you,
And how this is always,
Our own idyll,
And this road is forever,
Even though we'll find it in different places.
And then your hand finds mine in the darkness
Nests there
And traces my fingers in tender spirals.
I lie back into the cracked leather seats,
To look at the heavens
And I sigh.
As I feast my sight on the shimmering face of God,
The road slips beneath us in the lunar faintness of forgotten
time.

28/11/01