Men came,
scared the land,
gouged great gashes,
hundres of mines,
hundreds of feet deep
to uncover coal.
Rail beds, steam locomotives
conveyers to haul coal
and mountains of skag,
the residue of rape
everest across miles of ruined earth.
The boneyards:
graders, tractors,
welding sheds, garages,
great coal rush skeletons
gone down to silent heaps of rust.

But, notice, now, those hills.
Moonscapes, still, but softening,
Nature reclaiming, repainting,
Her pallet,
mountain laurel green, new bud gold,
dogwood white splashed like snow in spring woods.

Fifty year old second growth,
oak, elm, maple,
Nature, able now,
(the men being gone)
to heal.

She presses Her hands
on Her fertile womb
and rebirths a forest
where once was tomb.