Along the country lanes of England's sleepy hills
eyes glint in the hedgerows,
and tree limbs thrash in the dark.
A school bus trundles around muddy roads,
past a graveyard surrounded by brambles
and a weather-beaten oak tree in the middle of an empty field.
Its charred branches lie by the gnarled trunk
the aftermath of a thunderstorm.
In June a sickly heat rises over boughs
of rotting elderflower and towering nettles,
dark blackberries are protected by tangled masses of thorns.
The woods stretch out; dark, hushed, in every direction,
until they are woken by listless car headlights.
thin and ghostly, the trees quiver in the face of feigned daylight.
Mar 9, 2018
Mar 9, 2018 at 11:56 AM UTC
Along the country lanes of England's sleepy hills
eyes glint in the hedgerows,
and tree limbs thrash in the dark.
A school bus trundles around muddy roads,
past a graveyard surrounded by brambles
and a weather-beaten oak tree in the middle of an empty field.
Its charred branches lie by the gnarled trunk
the aftermath of a thunderstorm.
In June a sickly heat rises over boughs
of rotting elderflower and towering nettles,
dark blackberries are protected by tangled masses of thorns.
The woods stretch out; dark, hushed, in every direction,
until they are woken by listless car headlights.
thin and ghostly, the trees quiver in the face of feigned daylight.