Crossing the Border (Poetry)

The motorway unwound its miles among
bedraggled fields, disused and winter-worn,
that afternoon we drove towards a sun
sailing like an airship, zephyr-borne.

Colour deepened, shadows stretched their grey,
a pastel sky soaked up thin sunlight shed,
and wounded clouds hung patient as the day
grew weaker and its vivid pigment bled,

extravagent, in swiftly blending spills,
gathering the bold vermilion left
spreading dissolution on the hills
and staining our horizon with its death.

The corners of the sky began to curl,
turned indigo as early evening rolled
a fragile moon - an insubstantial pearl -
ethereal, her milky face ice-cold.

The river threw a swatch of watered silk
flecked with silver slubs - a random weave
of winter tides that patched a twilight quilt
and wrapped the gloomy docks and wind-chilled quays.

Suspended high above our westward view,
the bridge swung like a cradle draped with stars,
and mud flats gleamed wet lengths of smooth slate-blue
outshining the pale stream of passing cars.

The estuary, transformed by tricks of light,
looked magical - a Disneyland disguise -
the towers of the steel works twinkling white
as fairy castles charmed before our eyes...

Unlovely buildings, blurred to nameless brown
silhouettes that shouldered into sight
as switches flicked throughout the dusk-filled town -
all borders crossed, accompanied by night.