Black Mountain

Black Mountain became blacker today,
its granitic peak hid inside numbing
leaden covers of quilted fog,

and nobody had been ready.

Sorrowful clouds obscure any perhaps of day,
morning empties out promise completely,
now is altogether night.

Coal scraps from innards deep have been hauled
piece by leery piece in short tons up blind-sided
onyx tunnels by brave and weary men,

(oh their sodden silent pain, their once young arms
and limber legs have ached and ached for long
and fearful years)

and rowling heaving machines born in the reek and roil
of industrial nightmares where smoke thickened storms
brew sulfurous smells and warn with blood red pennants
windblown, waving from a thousand feet under this hollowed
out midnight sky.

Anthracite hunks pierce and scrape elegant tall
pines raw, rocks of congealed heat slice fierce
through rugged bark to fibrous skin where amber
sap once ran sticky as syrup and small children tumbled
across these acres until circles had each been named anew,
as so full they were that once,

and each crying salt tears and joyful shrieks in shade
below on pungent green and brown beds
of soft needles which surprise,

all they ever wanted
was to fly free like
those pleasing birds
and butterflies above,

there in the heavens
of seamless smiling
ease, radiant light
and the very yes!
of love.

Yet, Black Mountain
did darken today,

and these birds search
and grope for clear air
to breathe
and to be on wing again
in the wet cold gray
of a truly drizzling
morn.