The hill wears the road like a belt
Fat forested belly sagging at the waist,
Stretching the tarmac like elastic over the bloated land.
It is as if gravity were pulling that huge mass
Of elder and oak and ash and spruce and sapling
The rotting limbs and the gnarled, slithering roots
And the pungent, all-over everywhere wild garlic,
Pressing it against the hedge in a bid for freedom.
The road’s dashed white line is a no man’s land
A modern Hadrian’s Wall stopping bark battalions,
Guarding against rooted raiders that move without moving,
That whisper voicelessly, and that
Have no sense of time.
Not long, branches whisper to tired, cracked tarmac,
Not long not long not long