The humming

It was not a night to remember,
rather, a night to forget.

Late autumn, my German Shepherd and I
in a farm cottage on the far reaches of town —
a clear night with frost setting in, fields shining
with great clusters of mushrooms like fallen clouds.

No sound but the faint squabble-gobble of turkeys
jostling for room on the milking shed rails
and a motorbike whining up some distant hill
as the last dying log shifts in the fire.

2am, and the shrieks of a lone swamp hen
cut through the night like a skilsaw.
My dog rouses himself from the foot of the bed,
cocks his big head at the ceiling and growls.

A humming is descending with a vibration that hurts my ears —
distant at first, then closer and closer
louder and louder, until the room starts shaking
like a moving railway carriage.

My wolf and protector launches himself with a yelp
and scrambles under the bed.
The humming stops just above the roof,
the room bathed in bright light.

One of the dog’s hind legs is knocking on the floorboards.
I’m too petrified to pray or swear —
someone or something is watching.
The world as I know it goes into cardiac arrest.

Finally the humming ascends, fading,
the brightness funnels back through the ceiling.
At dawn I summon the courage to move.
The dog takes longer to come out from under the bed.

Print