Lost Poem by John a'Beckett

Thick night. A guess of place. Mid-Mazovia? Wonder where, then
as Jolanta’s car tyres beat in their bumble drum bounce in question
over the blabbing big slabs of cobble-stones under. Probably paving;
a whiff of invented breeze met with a shake maybe shudder of leaves,
barn silhouette, moss lunar green, premonition of trees. Linden? Willow?
A dog’s distant bark, rusting pipe, slow drip of an old pagan craving
Tap, is it? Back of the mind? Splash of a kind. What, water spillage?
and our having to hope all this is the sign of some sort of a village.

Happened before, hasn’t it, sudden landing on the Slavonic Unknown
near-death of a mill; in its stream a trout totally still- obituary bubble
The car stalls; the engine not wanting Battery flat. My hands fumble
in darkness for the glove-box, but no maps; Jolanta’s cell phone gone
out of range. Cul de sac “We’ll have to stay the night”. But where?
Shrug of her shoulders “Well, Tadek our host will perhaps understand-
This is Lost Poland and we’re in it”, nature sinking, a drawn curtain,
back to what it always wanted to be, the certainty nothing is certain.