The Earth's Mourning by Linda M. Crate

the white mist
rolled like an ocean wave
eclipsing the sky 
with it's fluffy clouds with 
a silver sort of 
crying,
and no one knew why the
earth should weep;
until they found the girl
whose tragic flaw was she trusted
everyone even those who
weren't to be trusted—
holding a bouquet of red roses
she was found in the creek
drifting like a dream
the puncture wounds in her neck 
weren't from any snake
though the villagers insisted that's what it was
because the truth was too terrible
a thing to believe
ignorance was the lens of their bliss
that allowed them to process evil.

Linda M. Crate's poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines both online and in print. She has five published chapbooks the latest of which came out in January 2018: Splintered By Terror (Scars Publications).