By Evan Gurney

Featured Art by Greg Rounds

Mine and mill have done their work,
the ridge face once lush with fir
and poplar now cleared of airy timber,
the brow slashed and bored, a strip
of railroad curling like a scar up
the mountain to the excavation’s cavity,
sealed now but still marking its territory,
still leaving its lasting impression.

Hidden from sight, a subterranean labyrinth
of crosscuts line like stitches the shaft
that slopes down and in through folds
and plunges to the precious stope
that engineers surveyed, prospected,
and, finally, removed entire, hoisting out
the bituminous ore, leaving behind a sump
that time and age will fill once more.

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Evan Gurney is a professor of English at the University of North Carolina Asheville. His poems and essays have appeared recently or are forthcoming in Appalachian Review, Contrary, storySouth, Tar River Poetry, Whale Road Review, and elsewhere.