In the Mountains

One night the rain fell so hard
that we thought that the sky had been torn open
and was bleeding its last lifeblood over our crops,
crippling the shack where we lived:
half the roof fell in and we huddled
in the cellar among rotting carrots,
mud running down the cold stone
from the cracks in the cellar door.
It was past midnight and the rain still bit
chunks out of the hillside,
the dark sky empty
thickened with water, empty of stars
so we slept in the cellar, uneasy,
and when the rain finally stopped
hours later, it was still dark
and we woke to the mourning of wolves
somewhere deeper out in the forest

---

Patricia Schlutt, age 14
2009 Finalist
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Rodney Torreson's Poetry Workshop
Teacher: Rodney Torreson