Ridge Road

The hubris of humans is no match for the steady, silent Earth. She waits, then at a pace too slow to measure, she regains her domain. Gradually, leaf by persistent leaf, the marks of men and women are erased. They are transitory; she is timeless.

The only route out
is never an easy ride, just this
tilted cow path from the farm to
where he hopes to be by morning
in his brother’s car
   to be explained later
   or not
   depending.
He scrapes her into second gear
grim grip on the sweaty stick
lurches into third, which is
as far as you can push her while twisting past
   "Benson's boulder"
jutting across the path right here
   hulking like his old man
   silent and judgemental.
The left headlamp is still weak
he keeps telling his brother
it’s just a thin beam and
somewhere near here you have to crank her
   a hard left
   then right
around that mammoth white pine.
His old man keeps saying
   someone should take that damn tree down before
   someone gets killed.