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.