Laid Bare
As I look upon this barren mountain I think of the days that
I laid bare in the barren hospital room birthing my children.
This mountain top where women once birthed their babies at home under lush forests
Canopies of walnut, maple, American chestnut, with herbs and roots from the mountain to ease the pain, to clot the blood,
This mountain that now lay barren with rocky floors and canopies of scrub pine and autumn olive
This mountain, that will not even provide solace for the deer birthing her offspring.
The mountain that cannot nurture any human, any animal or itself - with rain water washing the mountain's inner most minerals and the mine refuse running off into the streams below to poison the water of the woman, who is barren, wishing for children that never come
Of the woman, who birthed a child in a barren hospital room who now cares that child as an adult because it cannot care for itself.
The barren mountain now poisons those who live under it instead of nurturing those who lived on it.