My mountain,
My Mother.
Weeping with the blood
of my Grandfather's fathers,
Faces, stained black.
My mountain
Wails for justice,
Losing her voice,
Like a dying wick
in a smoldering candle.

Her children,
in the corner,
surviving
on scraps
from the master's table.
Cloaked,
in darkness,
unknowing,
unseen,
While she is raped.

Everything pure.
Everything just.
Everything Sacred.
Reduced to ashes and soot for a dollar.

Labels: Appalachia, Appalachian life, coal, mining, mountaintop removal, poetry

I'm a hillbilly, a woman, and a poet, and I understood early on that nobody was going to listen to anything I had to say anyway, so I might as well just say what I want to.

- Irene McKinney, Poet Laureate, West Virginia

Labels: Appalachian life, famous appalachians, Irene McKinney, poet laureate, poetry, poets, Quote of the day, West Virginia