Mining the Mountains

In the distance, a mountain's fate remains in jeopardy while the mining company begins the process by logging before the blasting.


A PERSPECTIVE ON MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL
Today a blast shot out and saddened all who heard.
Nature screamed and vomited pain
While a blood-mist dirt sprayed skyward.
Like a violent rape, a wound exposed, ugliness for all to see
With life destroyed and beauty gone
A tortured death, a mountain’s long decay.

How sad, what a shame you say!
This shouldn’t have happened.
Why do “those people” do such horrible things?
On a happy note, I enjoyed the widened road today,
The new four-lane that sped me on my way
Through mountains beautiful beneath the sky.

To you, I reply that all participate in the orgy, all create the death.
Concrete and asphalt, granite counter tops,
A driveway for house with mountain view,
Elaborate stone work, a show of affluence,
Create the rape, continue the need
For flesh severed from mountain loins.

We Are the People of Appalachia

We are the people of Appalachia. We are made strong by harsh winters and softened by the sight of flowers dotted with butterflies, and uplifted by birds that fly across the sky. In a sense, we are Appalachia. We have a special unity with the soil, the life, and the very breath of these living mountains. While our bodies were forming within our mothers, our souls were springing forth from the beauty all around us. We have a oneness and joy in our being and a melding of spirit with our world. We experience a kinship with nature that a person existing in a man-made reality can rarely comprehend.

As children, the woods called to us with its coolness and moist fragrance. It held the delights of deer disappearing among the trees, glimpses of a fleeing fox, and the welcome beauty of a spring ephemeral. We explored colorful little mushrooms with umbrellas catching dew, and salamanders hiding beneath odd-shaped rocks. We watched in wonder as baby frogs with bandit faces emerged from vernal pools while the azure sat blue upon the cohosh. In autumn we savored the beautiful leaves as they fell gently to the ground creating a special woodland fragrance that only an October day can yield. As life lay dormant, we heard the chilling voice of the winter wind while trees with uplifted arms shivered in the cold. Life whispered all around us with secrets too deep to understand.

Our wisdom lies not in having tokens from the plastic world, for we are rich beyond our knowledge. We see instead the beauty of nature presented before our eyes. Make no mistake, we are learned in a special way, one that we share with generations of those who have known the same sensuousness, the same enchanting call of nature. We have a wisdom that strangers from synthetic places, strangers with smog filled eyes and damaged hearing and senses never developed cannot experience. We are strong, we are softened, and we are uplifted for we are the people of Appalachia.

In memory of my dad and grandfather

Fighting Cancer Is a Lonely Journey

Fighting cancer is a lonely journey that can only be understood by those dealing with the over-shadowing ogre of death. We push the monster away, consciously denying its existence, but it is still there. No matter what one’s age, there is a strong longing for life, for just one more adventure, one more sun-stroked day washed with the fragrance of a growing earth. Moments shared with loved ones are beyond the realm of “treasures” and become a merging of mind, heart and spirit. Life becomes defined by moments which take flight like giant snowflakes, softly landing as flower petals drifting to earth. I yearn for spring with its cool promise of new life, and its delicate beauty laced with sprinkles of color.