Coal Dust
- drcarr6
- Aug 12, 2016
- 1 min read
I am using today's blog post to feature one of the poems from my book, "I Want to Dance Naked," which is available for purchase through this website. The poem is entitled "Coal Dust."
COAL DUST
The green of the Kentucky hills
Is coated with it
This dust that is sustenance
And death
It marks us always
My father spent his life
Smothered in its dark embrace
It etched the palms of his hands
The pores of his skin
It would not wash off.
My childhood was spent
At my father’s side
Learning to hunt and fish
Knowing the land we walked
Hearing the stories
Of the caverns of coal
That lay beneath
Reveling in his love
That covered us
As surely as the dust of coal.
When daddy emerged
From his nightly labor
In the Kingdom of Coal
He needed to rest
Instead he played with us
Games of pitch and catch
Catching fish and shooting guns
Reading to us from
Kipling, Shakespeare, Tolstoy
Listening to our childish dreams.
This is what coal gave us
Time with our father
Food for our table
A roof over our heads
Clothing for our bodies
Heat to warm us
And stories
Of the mysterious world below us
Of friendships forged in survival
Of laughter in the face of death.
This is what coal exacted in payment
My brother, Johnny
Who died underground
Two weeks after
His twentieth birthday.
My first boyfriend
Barely into manhood
Classmates and neighbors and friends
My father
His lungs destroyed
By the pervasive dust of coal.
I ran from Kentucky
From the loss and the fear
But I carried coal dust inside me
I cough it up with words
I write in it my truths
I have learned acceptance
That joy and tragedy share
The same dusty roots
Miners I loved still light my way
I am a woman of coal.
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