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WHAT MY GRANDFATHER TAUGHT ME ABOUT MINING
I had forgotten that coal is carbonized plant matter.
I had been thinking of it mostly
as something that had killed my grandfather,
carbon in its cutthroat form,
when he worked in coal mining in West Virginia
far from his Italian farmland.
But it seems lately that he is reminding me,
What about carbon as graphite, as diamond?
The question then becomes:
can I work with the organic matter of my own life
and tend to its embers,
and honor him and all those who came before me?
Is mining related to the work of medicine,
a matter of diamond and graphite
an excavating of things within, looking for blue ground,
this ground of blues that contains the brilliant stone?
Is it a hunting of quarry deepest in hearts
under layers of symptoms and dreams,
all the while hoping we don't stay down too long,
hoping that the canary can still sing
despite the soot from so much digging
on its wings?
Poem "What My Grandfather Taught Me About Mining" © Gabriella Miotto
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