Driving The Trees

I’m just a driver sauntering an English country road the starlit side of dusk.

Occasional rows of tall winter trees escort this white–lit route,
with branches as pikes presented high,
as though they were the honour guard,
and I were king.

But worry haunts;
were I that leader,
I’d smell betrayal:

I’m ready for flight,
a gazelle sensing a lion’s eyes.

Yet there is no movement in this empty lane,
no life in the unhedged fields,
no wind in the winter trees.

And now I realise what I’ve seen;
my dashboard is being flashed white by light above my car,
from what I cannot see;

yet the fields,
the road,
the trees,
all are still.

I feel the shock of standing at a cliff edge and the ground starts to give.

I lean forward,
look up through the windscreen,
fearing what silent power could flash my car so bright.

I’m driving a row of naked trees across the full moon.

What a fool.