The Adventure Of A Timid Man Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The Adventure of a Timid Man.

The narrow dirt road I followed today was nothing more than a bumpy track,
on both sides ugly trees and thorny, evergreen bushes I was trapped in
the wilderness of enraged nature. Sun and deep shadows, god knows what
lurked in them. Prickly silence, the noise of the scooter unnerved me,
switched off the clamour; opaque calm. As a child when we played cowboys
and Indians I was forever the redskin; trust me to side with losers.
Tractor tracks which meant the road was leading somewhere. I heard grunts
in the bushes maybe it was a boar and if it charged I had no defense, not even
a folding knife. Whistled a Dixie tune, spoke loudly, the echo of my fear ran
up and down the road. I drove on ignoring the imps that grabbed at my shirt
trying to hold me back. And there I saw it the asphalted main road, now I had
nothing to fear but cars and crazy drivers.