Today’s contribution of poetry month is Maintrunk Country Roadsong by Sam Hunt from Time To Ride, published by Alister Taylor, 1975.
Maintrunk Country Roadsong
Driving south and travelling
not much over fifty,
I hit a possum . . . “Little
man” I muttered copping
down to second gear,
“I never meant you any harm”
My friend with me, he himself
a man who loves such nights
bright headlight nights, said
“Possums? just a bloody pest,
they’re better dead!”
He’s right of course.
So settling back, food down hard,
Ohakune, Tangiwai –
as often blinded by
the single headlight of
a passing goods train as by
any passing car –
Let the Midnight Special shine
its ever loving light on me:
they run a prison farm
somewhere round these parts;
men always on the run.
These men know such searchlight nights:
those wide shining
eyes of that young possum
full-beam back on mine,
watching me run over him . . .
“Little man
I never meant you any harm”
– Sam Hunt -
