Evening darkens upon the moors,
Forgiveness—a hairless thing
skirting the headlamps, fugitive.
Why have we come,
traversing the long miles
and extremities of solitude,
worriedly crisscrossing the wrong maps
with directions
obtained from passing strangers?
Why do we sit,
frantically retracing
love’s long-forgotten signal points
with cramping, ink-stained fingers?
Why the preemptive frowns,
the litigious silences,
when only yesterday we watched
as, out of an autumn sky this vast,
over an orchard or an onion field,
wild Vs of distressed geese
sped across the moon’s face,
the sound of their panicked wings
like our alarmed hearts
pounding in unison?
My family did get lost in an English moor on a dark moonless night. It happened when I was a boy. My mother was driving and seemed to have no idea where we were, or which direction to head. I wondered if we would ever find civilization again. It was a very spooky experience that I drew on for my poem. Keywords/Tags: England, Devon, moor, car, headlamps, headlights, directions, maps, points, routes, strangers, signals, orchard, field, geese, hearts, relationships, parting, separation, divorce, loneliness, alienation, free verse
