Just an old woman ? she scowls . Rotten teeth grit through the nagging ache in her bones . This old woman has had no say in the affairs of gods since they were crawling at her feet and suckling on her breast .
Back then she was just a girl . When the mountain was fresh and new , recently birthed from the earth ’ s supple crust . When the tallest hawthorns and oaks were mere sprigs reaching out from seas of grass and clover .
Now the green fields she traipsed as a child are grey . Le in ruin and rubble by the hands of her own flesh and blood . Brutish sons who ransacked and killed . Created and destroyed under the guise of drunken fancies . Wicked daughters who lied and deceived . Bore more and more tainted souls to dig scars deep into the earth ’ s wrists and bleed her dry .
The hag o en wonders how much fault she ought to carry on her hunched back .
A er all , they could only have learned their selfish deeds from her . Lord knows their fathers had little involvement in the matter . But then perhaps the children were born with it in their veins . Inherited the sins of absent fathers and spread across the four corners of the land like toxic spores . Following in the scorched footsteps of giants and tyrants .
Perhaps the hag could have done better by them . Could have taught them right from wrong . Deed from sin . Need from want .
But things were different back then . She did as she was told , as she was expected to . Women didn ’ t say “ no ” and the hag didn ’ t have the vocabulary . Now the word cracks and bubbles in her throat . Her tongue lashes it out like a sputum whip at every man who holds out their hands and expects something from her .
She is much too old to shout it from the roo ops . Far too weary to make a stand . Her knees can barely hold her up any longer .
The soles of her shoes rip and flap with every step . Knobbled toes rubbed raw in their leather prisons . She pauses to slip cracked heels out from her shoes and lets the air catch the sweat and mould between her digits . Yellow toenails scrape the dirt like locomotive tree roots , burying deep to drink in the soil .
But it has long been bled of fruit and loins and the kiss of Mother Nature .