Cutting a trail across the chest
of Whitehouse Cliff, the lead man
told us to chop down through the top
layer of leaves and good loam
held together by lithe pallets of roots
and dark soil into the rock and sand below
so the trail would not fall away
but would hold firm and bleach
with each successive season of heat and snow.
He called the mats of roots and foliage
duff, said it must get scraped off
to leave a lasting mark, peeled back
like a blanket lest the hillside reclaim
the path into itself through the bleedhealing
of erosion. And so quiet seepage troughs
receive redirection, the path to the distant
headwall made straighter, footholds secured.
