The Snowbank

The snowbank
like a dirty continent
as coarse and sooty as a miner’s back
has erupted from the ground,
buried ice pressing turf, stones and soil
into the grey, wet air.
Grass tufts wave stiffly in the wind
like broom straw
unwashed all winter,
as colorless as matted leaves.
Thrust from their dark home
they limply grasp an arch of faltering ice.

Roots can be uprooted.
At any time the earth
can rise in a buckling heave
and leave tendrils dangling for food
or open like a wound
and bury green blades from the sun,
as when an earthquake
shakes a highway into rubble
stranding survivors on a severed bridge,
their hair waving coarsely
in the threatening wind
as they grope for someplace steady.


—Eric Nelson