These are karmic hills,
Their spoil sides steep and perilous.
Granite shards slip invisibly
And cats cradles guard the sultry depths
Of these deep dark burrows, delved by men.
Small men, hard men, poor men, historic men,
Dead men!
It as if the hills themselves are testimony alone
To mans puerile attempts to subjugate Mother Earth.
The stone engine houses are cast down, yet
Forever reaching skyward in mute supplication to a hidden God.
Wind and rain and the incessant passage of time
Have bled most of them dry,
They are mere husks of spent energy,
Shadow casts now, that only wraiths attend.
A sliver of stone slides surreptitiously down.
Its tenuous hold finally lost as the age old wind
Lifts it with a gusty breath.
It slithers, noisily toward the shaft edge
Then drops, mute, into the dark abyss.
The rock piece falls and falls and falls
And then, baptism.
It sinks through water, rocking like a feather on a breeze
Until it touches the mother lode
And is finally still.
On the surface the bird witness soars heavenward.
Trudie Shannon
