A Lay Bye On The Highway Poem by Edwin Hopper

In cold dark away from the cities bright,
with engine turned off, and blanket tight,
a lonely working trucker, sleeps tonight.

The mist parts to a white owl’s ghostly flight,
over dark tomb, of a medieval knight,
and be-nettled grave-yard, ‘neath cloud light.

At the tarmac edge, a mouse in fright,
cowers from the stoat and weasel spite,
where once an ancient coven held their rite.

A wounded rabbit screams in final plight,
at the slab of a wartime ack-ack site,
by the spring of a Roman water sprite.

A vixen scents the ghost of barrow wight.
Her fox scrapes, at ancient battle dyke,
unafraid of dead, who have no might.

No living human eyes ever alight,
on haunted living mists, and awful sights,
existing, just beyond our ken, at night

Oblivious to natures endless fight,
with engine turned off, and blanket tight,
our tired working trucker, sleeps tonight.