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Cumberland Song

Cumberland Song by Janet B. Thiessen Surrender, then, in Tennessee Your nature-loving heart. Come walk the hills with me, In silence speak with earth. I'll show you mines and miner's lettuce, Abandoned tipples, dogwoods, túpelo, Strip mine scars and wildflowers Bloodroot, prisons, phlox, Solidago. Coal seams six feet thick, with names Like Pee Wee, Walnut Mountain, Buffalo, Big Mary, Poplar Creek Not names of mines but seams which run For miles through mountains, luring men With money, trucks, bulldozers, and the yen To fill a need by moving earth. They've seldom Put it back. It's not as though we don't know How it's used. No secret weapon, coal. It's vapors seen and smelled, it's ashes felt In soot and acid rain with more to come. Coal leaves a trail of mud and slag and silt; Deep rutted roads that wind the mountains down, And sulfured creeks that stupefy the fish. The steepwalled hollows yield up coal and kids Whey-faced and empty-eyed, wasted without hope. Some are early bloomers like bloodroot and bluets, Their brightness gently fading far too soon. By repute their parents bred for meanness Yet "Honey" is what I've heard them call their sons. Their sun is absent, their future insecure, But coal-fired lives are tempered to endure. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Appalachian Review University of North Carolina Press

Cumberland Song

Appalachian Review , Volume 8 (2) – Jan 8, 1980
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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © Berea College
ISSN
1940-5081
Publisher site
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Abstract

by Janet B. Thiessen Surrender, then, in Tennessee Your nature-loving heart. Come walk the hills with me, In silence speak with earth. I'll show you mines and miner's lettuce, Abandoned tipples, dogwoods, túpelo, Strip mine scars and wildflowers Bloodroot, prisons, phlox, Solidago. Coal seams six feet thick, with names Like Pee Wee, Walnut Mountain, Buffalo, Big Mary, Poplar Creek Not names of mines but seams which run For miles through mountains, luring men With money, trucks, bulldozers, and the yen To fill a need by moving earth. They've seldom Put it back. It's not as though we don't know How it's used. No secret weapon, coal. It's vapors seen and smelled, it's ashes felt In soot and acid rain with more to come. Coal leaves a trail of mud and slag and silt; Deep rutted roads that wind the mountains down, And sulfured creeks that stupefy the fish. The steepwalled hollows yield up coal and kids Whey-faced and empty-eyed, wasted without hope. Some are early bloomers like bloodroot and bluets, Their brightness gently fading far too soon. By repute their parents bred for meanness Yet "Honey" is what I've heard them call their sons. Their sun is absent, their future insecure, But coal-fired lives are tempered to endure.

Journal

Appalachian Review – University of North Carolina Press

Published: Jan 8, 1980

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