Encounter

 

 

Should we two meet on the oil road at dusk

Again, oh promise, promise me you’ll stay

The blackened trunk of a wildfire-ravaged oak,

And not, as I draw near in the failing light,

No! turn, without a bark, and grunt into

A four-limbed motive trunk, a coal-black fright

To scare loud-rustling cries, in wood-bound flight,

From sapless leaf and sere black walnut husk

Before your dreaded form’s in darkness sunk,

Sending a rush of fight-or-flight all through

That inner dark so pitched to stand the hair

Upon my skin and break a cold-sweat wave

Down over me to freeze my bare-limbed stroke

For fear to breast the spot—then, speeding it

To race the falling night, compel me to

Go past it! darting dry-mouthed frighted glances

Back over that side’s shoulder every few

Near bare and wilding footfalls to assure 

My wilder pacing heart each time “It’s gone!”

That each step fast retraces all we strode,

All we, then fearless, set our feat upon

In light—and light, heart ends! the oil road.

 

My feet would swell the distance but my heart

Bade us to stand awash in man-made light,

Oh not to breathe in life and heave a sigh,

But turn, confront the blackness, and commune:

“Look, should we meet on the oil road at dusk

By chance, anew, come let us pledge we two

To not let fear so come between us as

To part us, blindly, each to flee into

His own and alien darkness—rather, let us

Nest between us, to supplant the fear,

Some sense we’re on the road to brotherhood,

A little of the essence friends hold dear,

Say something like the bonding scent of musk.

Would it not serve us much the same as trust?

But then I guess (must we suppose?) too much

Has come between us these estranging years,

Say something like bad blood, for us to ever

Trust—perhaps you’re running still from what

It is that I turned into in the dusk,

And cannot hear. So let me speak unto

The night that it might be the bearer of

The olive branch my heart extends to you

In deed of trust, my words to be my bond:

From this night forth you nevermore need fear

Of picking up my heady scent of musk,

Nor dread what I’ll turn into, drawing near,

For the blackness on the oil road at dusk.”