Death Slide

From the backseat of our car ascending
Up the hill I look out at the fields,
Bare except for hedgerows stretching over
Like the lines to which an old hand yields.

I remember mother’s hand upon my shoulder,
The steady weight, the voice that made me calm,
Speaking softly in my small boys ear:
I promise you won’t come to any harm.

With that promise and with eyes fixed staring
Down the death slide’s dark uncertain drop,
I did not know exactly what was coming,
My small hands trembling, clinging to the top.

And this is what I feel now looking over
Fields scorched with man’s uncertain mark –
My fingers slipping from the wooden bar,
My body carried down into the dark.