Celebrating National Poetry Month: #6: Mining Hope

Mining Hope

I am

from the mining town of Kellogg.

Most days I inhaled smelter smoke.

Other days I unknowingly played in lead.

I am the daughter of a Bunker Hill worker

that had to leave work clothes at the Zinc Plant,

and arose each morning with a hacking cough,

but walked the picket line during the long strike.

I am the granddaughter of a woman

unable to breathe in the town she called home.

I am the sister of a man

With crackling,damaged lungs.

I am the daughter of a mother

that survived breast cancer,

but earlier taught handwriting, reading,

and math under the shadow of the smelter smokestack.

I now return

to the Superfund town of Kellogg.

Trees flourish in brilliant green,

water runs clear as the

river winds through town,

air fills with morning freshness.

New soil, new yards, new air,

flowers bloom in hope.

inlandempiregirl , April 2009