coal mines

I saw them dancing slowly
on the slag piles below the mouth of the coal mine
women and old people,
like they were trampling grapes over the Yangzi
where the land was all dead and brown

where the trucks lumbered up and down day and night
and load by load
the mountain gave way.
I saw them dancing slowly in the grey muck of rain by that
bleeding mountain, the sulphrous river.

They were sawing rocks for China
the coal was tumbling down the face of the mountain.
A dirty dog sat on top of a black coal hill
in the smoke and rubble while
The People danced on the bones of the land
slowly in a circle
sawing the rocks on the tortuous road to Lijiang.

the new black coal tumbled down the mountainside
and rested for miles on the backs of itself in the yangzi
and a penny colored stream rolled down it from
top to bottom, thin like a stream of tears that
didn't stop from sky to earth

and that land moaned
it moaned, couldn't they hear it as they circled, sawing,
digging, moving
ripping the mountains down
rock by rock

couldn't they hear it,
the agony of the giants
as they died forever

forgive them i prayed as the rains came
heavy
please forgive
for we know not what we do