WHAT SHE SAW AND WHAT SHE HEARD by Nancy Simpson

On the mountain a woman saw

the road bank caved in

from winter's freeze-thaw

and April rain erosion.

Trees leaned over the road the way

strands of hair hung on her forehead.

She gaped, her face as tortured

as the face she saw engraved in dirt.

Roots growing sideways shaped brows,

two eyes.  Humus washed

down the bank like a nose.

Lower down, where a rock

was shoved out by weathering,

a hole formed the shape of a mouth.

The woman groaned, Agh.

Her spirit toppled

to the ground, slithered

under the roots of an oak.

She stood there as if lost, asking

What?  Who?

Back to reason, back home

she finished her questions:

What can one make of the vision, that face

on the north side of the mountain?

Reckoning comes, a thought:

it is not the image of a witch nor a god,

but Earth's face, mouth open saying,

Save me.

Previously published in Pembroke Magazine

edited by Shelby Stephenson.