Whiteout

by George Murray

Click on the player below to listen to George Murray reading the poem

Pull the car over and take a moment
to note that this is where the road ends,
notwithstanding the memory of the path
continuing around the bend. The last
red taillights are painted over and the snow
presses its face up against the window,
begging to be let in. Turn the engine off,
it says, and hear this original soft
sound, a book of white nothing. I am life
without known rules: no signs, no lights, no lines
on the road; no ditches, asphalt, or curbs;
no people to see, no horizons or turns
to make; no destination. Draw aside.
Let your engine die and we'll compromise
temperature, colour, sound. I am life
where life heaves, turns and reads its final leaf.
Inside, the tick-tock of cooling machinery;
outside, the rattle ends this needless scenery.
If the road goes on without you, it goes blind.
Here, all is only static and knuckles cracking;
here you ease the tension ahead by waiting,
despite the chance of being hit from behind.