These roads were horse tracks once, I hear;
curving slowly into the rising hill
easing the passage of harvest-heavy carts
hauled by teams of horses to each farm –
their sweating heads low, necks taut,
as their hooves spat sound – ice-sharp –
into a darkening sky.

I’m told that highwaymen roamed here too;
their cache remaining in the fields above the farm.
So when I walk these shadowed roads in winter
and the moon is all I have,
my thoughts are now of silver:
the cool wash of moonlight across a sour and empty hedge,
eyes gleaming, wet with fear, at this dark interruption;
the glint of silver at a horse’s foaming mouth.