October in Swallowfield

Harsh wind screaming
moaning
with biting crisp of Autumn night

Shadows dancing
tossing
in dark branches of bare grey Elms

Lanes are winding
curling
in pale peach-orange headlight glow

Sudden hedgerows
looming
edging lit limits of darkness

All power-cut night
surrounding
strange silhouettes caught in the beam

No distant farm lights in fields or on Tor
no guiding beacons to navigate place
openness, emptiness stretching before
no definitions to recognise space

Cottages shudder their thatches
thrilling
chimneys smoke message-morse

On ledges weak candles flicker
warping
rounded glass glimmer patterns

Pub signs beat rhythms while swinging
twisting
wildly in wind-crazy dance

Steeple bell dull dreary ringing
catching
riding on wind to the copse

And still the lanes loop and drift out
threading
ribbons of pebbles and stone

Roads unfurling into the night
stitching
surface and space in to one

Finally fading back to black
melting
to motorway flat tarmac.

© M.L.Emmett