Sherry Chandler » Lost with the Mountains
Lost with the Mountains
The Killin’
They’re gray,
the house, the car,
the flowers in our yard,
all gray.
Sometime after while
the sun’ll come up
over the mountains
and slice the dirty fog.
Our noses burn.
Our eyes sting.
At night we cough and wheeze
and a body’s hair is never clean.
Yesterday,
Daddy said, “This here killin’
is how we make our livin’.
These dark holes
light the nation.”
We buried him this morning.
— Wanda D. Campbell, first published by Rogue Scholars 2005
*For R.T. and all those miners like him
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2 Comments
1. Charlie replies at 25th February 2006, 11:27 am :
“If we must grind up human flesh and bone in the industrial machine we call modern America, then before God I assert that those who consume the coal, and you and I who benefit from that service because we live in comfort, we owe protection to those men first, and we owe security to their families if they die. I say it, I voice it, I proclaim it, and I care not who in Heaven or Hell opposes it.”
John L. Lewis
1947 testimony before U S congress after the tragedy at Centralia Ill. where 111 miners died.
Thank you, Wanda for the writing this great poem and preserving that picture of humanity forever.
2. Wanda D. Campbell replies at 25th February 2006, 7:40 pm :
Thank you, Charlie.
Ironically, I just got home from spending the day with R.T.’s widow, a wonderful person, a true miner’s lady. How fitting your quote is to this man, and I greatly appreciate it.
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