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.
