Slow Sailers Poem by Rod M.Peters

I've not been haunted, like you,
By eerily glowing dragonflies
The size of young doves
Stopping you cold on your feet
In the narrow meadow-lanes,
Their luminescent eyes staring at you
With the urgency of those tasked
To convey unutterable secrets.

Nor by the trampling of powerful hooves
Echoing menacingly ever closer
Through the moonlit forest
Putting your faithful dogs on the run,
Leaving you alone to face but
A strangely scented mist
Whose cold arms embrace you for a moment
But just as soon leave you
To catch a glimpse of a gossamer Moon
Through frozen branches.

But I've been haunted
Night after night,
Season after season,
By the Slow Sailers of the western skies
Tracing their course through
Well-worn celestial paths,
Appearing like clockwork
With the last glow of the sinking orb,
At times dimming down to mere specks of light,
But then puffing up to blinding beacons,
Though I only half believe they are,
As the old mountain-folk claim,
The ‘lights of the dead'.