Kentucky Poems: Coal

Mining Was

My father was a powder man.

Big John cold-cocked a bank mule

With his fist, so the story goes.

Mythological.

My father, six foot two and smiling at age thirty.

Five foot ten and in pain at age sixty.

Shrunk from the giant he once was.

Demeaning.

My father, proud and strong in youth.

Tired and coughing with age.

Bent into an old man.

Killing.

My father, smile bright in youth.

Smile died as mines shut.

Old love lost to time and age.

His life.

Coal Smoke

Westerfield Drive, coming from 41A,

Past the arch, cresting the hill.

Early winter morning in small town Kentucky.

Above, gun metal steel, gray and threatening.

Below, morning charcoal spreading over the valley.

Coal smoke, thick and unyielding.

Driving into the coal smoke.

Metallic taste.

Exhaling smoke through lungs and pores.

Pores extending to extrude the clinkers.

Jesus will save you,

But white shirts are beyond redemption.

Stark cold slicing through coats,

Settling into bones.

Numbing the spirit and clouding judgment.

Film noir through the windshield,

Cold black and gray trees, shadows, pavement.

Shivering don’t help.

Ice in the air, black shine covering the road.

Tires straining to find traction,

Down Main Street, up town hill,

Left, then right, then left again,

Up iceplant hill, and home.

Coal stove glows a welcoming orange.

The Prize

My father, home from the mines,

Hands, face, overalls, and hair caked with coal dust.

My mother, heating water on the stove

To be poured into a number three washtub.

My father, a giant with a smile on his tired face,

Stripping off clothes,

Folding his big body, pallid except for the mining parts,

Into the little tub.

Tub water becoming slaggish,

Gritty to the touch, scum floating on top.

My mother washing his back.

Water sloshing onto tired linoleum.

In the top of the dinner bucket, in a pan

Over the water that fills the bottom, my prize awaits.

Fried egg and half-cooked bacon

On soggy white Holsum Bread.

The coal stove warms the house.

The bathing ritual continues.

I, content in the moment, eat what is left

Of my father’s dinner.