Night Ride To Dunsford Poem by Sandy Fulton

To Dunsford in Dartmoor.
A dirt road through empty wilderness,
a long drive from Exeter, and I am late.
Night descends rapidly
into a new moon twilight
on this old road.

If there's a farmhouse on left or right
where I might find friendly folk
who'd pity the foreigner
and clamp a bracing mug of tea into her shaking hands,
it isn't visible.

Because sheer embankments rise in shadows left and right,
the road so narrow it swallows the car
in centuries of ruts—
bare feet, sandals, Roman boots, ox-carts,
wagons, coaches, surreys, motorcars—
cutting ever deeper into ancient Celtic fields.

October branches bend and tangle overhead,
crowd the darkening sky
to form an endless gothic roof
of a Black Mass cathedral.
Twilight blackens into night,
fog shrouds the moor,
swirls my headlights into fingers of primordial fear.

I drive hunched and sweating,
twisting, ascending, descending, climbing again
through a tortuous wormhole.
No side-roads, no pullovers, no homey light,
only the endless terrible tunnel.

If I meet destiny racing toward me,
how can either of us avoid death?
Finally, a narrow rising road on the right,
climbing to a pale light.
Somehow I got where I meant to go.

Dartmoor is said to be haunted by red-eyed black dogs,
evil spirits of the dead,
a cruel and treacherous place.

I believe it!