SPEED by GLORIA GODDARD

We glide along the glistening road that lies
Like a polished blade beneath our lights, and flies
Behind like a thing insane.
Ahead, the sky dips down like a wall, gleaming
With stars. The trees rush by, streaming
Their leaves and branches through the thin air
As a flood in spring.

With sibilant malice
The wheels hiss as they fling
Us from stolid security to breathless doubt.
Towns are drowned in a pool of light
Dripping from each house
Into the hollow moment, caught in flight.
The still breeze leaps into a shout
To taunt our ears,
And, barbed as a javelined host,
Pricks our stiffened faces.

Up a hill, where the road springs
Free to reach the clouds,
We rush with whistling breath,
While the silver night sings
Low insistent warning.
Down, down, into the dipping valley, --
All I am; -- body, heart, and soul,
That slender quickening spark that sets me
Apart from hill and still metal road
And stiff stone wall, --
Is dwindled to that constricted spot
Within my narrow throat.
In a half-sick ecstasy of fear, I soar
Up, up, again,
Until we nearly meet the sky.
The soft night air raises its protesting cry
To a roar.

Two rapier lights
Thrust swiftly over the crest
Of the hill.
Terror, with a mocking laugh,
Hurls oblivion from each shaft
Of night-spiked light. --

Let it come!
Let it lift me high for one last flight,
Then down to the quiet rest
Of all quick things. --
The brilliant death leers by,
We sink between the breasted hills,
Like a planet from the sky. --
Numb --
And stream with the hurtling wind.
On -- on --
Shrinking time to that gnat worry
Men call seconds;
Making the gay leaves scurry
From the hollowness we slice
Out of the shadowed air;
Winding space
On our hissing wheels.
On -- on --

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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