(Google images)
that night
walking back from Rough-tor.
You’ll never get me up there, I told him
but he did,
him and his friend
insisted, hoisted me
upward, one pulling from above,
the other pushing from below.
A second with my legs dangling
before I clambered to the top.
We looked out across the deserted moors
and drank it all in,
the untouched beauty.
He played the drums,
his friend the didgeridoo,
as we all had a smoke
and drank in the view.
A mist began swirling
and settling around us.
How quickly
and thickly it came.
It had been a mile walk
to the foot of the stones
though we could see it ahead,
boulder upon boulder, crowned
with a huge basin pebble
for climbers to scale
and sit awhile,
be part of it all,
the feral wilderness,
buzzing with some ageless aura
that allowed us in
but knew
we were not from here.
Mere mortals, dots
in the craggy scape.
We soaked it up.
Then darkness fell,
fell quickly
and we had to make our way down
before the bluing sky
made it hard to see,
hopped to ground just in time.
We began the rugged mile back
but it was different now.
There were horses,
black as night
in the luminous dark,
our view thick with fog
but for their silhouettes
against the moonlight.
So many,
untamed,
snorting
breath like smoke
thumping the ground
around us,
between us,
through us,
from where had they appeared?
I was terrified.
We were on their turf,
and there was no other way
back to the road
but through the rough terrain
of herd. I kept on
walking, almost lost
my footing, feigned
calm, felt unreal.
Would I be butted, floored,
flattened any moment?
Every step arduous
as galloping hooves came close
then stopped abruptly
inches from me,
us. Thank the stars
they let us pass
though they seemed to know
we shouldn’t be there.
Watchful, that whole mile,
with pelting heart and hoof,
they sniffed us out,
atmosphere thick
with drifts of fog,
night’s wild horses
and the bright, bright moon.
© N Nazir 2025
*Written for dVerse Poetics.
*Rough-Tor (pronounced row-tor) is in Bodmin Moor, Cornwall. I couldn’t find an image that really conveyed the atmosphere I experienced; above is a photo of a similar rocky outcrop we climbed, and I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.
Sunra Rainz 