it's no one's (and everyone's) fault

Greetings all--late post to offer more detail on the Fault Line poem form that Mary Lee used in her Poetry Sisters/Arthur Sze poem today.  Over in Laura Shovan's February Poetry Project, a prompt about "What Lies Beneath?" the reminded me of a poem I wrote 2020 that kind of created itself. I don't think it exists as a known, named form (although it's similar to some you all know), so I'm trying to define it. Here's my working description:

A fault line poem contains a hidden line running beneath its surface — not in the first letters like an acrostic, or in end-words like a golden shovel, but in the fractures between words. The hidden line is built from edges rubbing together across rifts: the ending of one word, the beginning of another, or both combined. Whole words of the “landscape” poem may also be used. The result should be a smaller poem buried in the landscape poem, like a geological fault hidden beneath stable ground. Perhaps stepping close to it creates a vertiginous feeling of risk, or revelation.

The hidden line can be marked typographically (bold, italics, small caps) for those who want to show the fault line clearly as in my poem below, or left entirely concealed.

The reveal of the fault line at the end, like the haiku that ends a haibun, invites the reader to reconsider the formerly stable ground they were standing on from a new perspective.

To construct one: Begin with the line you want to hide---or don’t, and let the two intertwined pieces develop simultaneously! Either way, you’ll build the poem outward from it, choosing words whose edges, pressed together, yield the words of your hidden text in sequence. The poem must stand on its own — the fault line should be barely visible until the reader falls into it.

I'm posting the original fault line, called "Elves Chasm, Grand Canyon," and then another that I wrote, much shorter. 

On the Edge

Show me another gray day

and I’ll surrender, start scanning the 

cold, wet landscape for a way out. 

I’ll climb a bridge and stand, swaying,

trying to judge how many feet I’d fall, if I’d 

hit hard enough. Who can take any more

of this gnawing, windy winter?

How can we stand 

any more winter?

Thanks to Margaret for hosting today--I won't get around to much commenting this weekend, but I thought I oughta share!