Eastern Montana Badlands
1930s....

Coal where one found it,
Scoria hills,
Layered lignite
Waiting near the surface.

Burning lignite beds,
Smoldering centuries old,
Scarring and turning clay to scoria,
Crumbling rock,
Testimony to lightning fires
Beneath the hills.

Crude mines backed into cliffs,
Pick and shoveled coal
Free for the risky taking
Heated homes.

Coal caves,
Low and gaping,
Horizontal shafts.
Wagons first, then
Trucks backed in.

Crowbars and picks
Brought lignite ceilings
Crashing in rotten shatters
Mounding, sometimes burying
Trucks below.

My father told me
How he helped
Chris Ginther,
Deaf coal miner,
Hammer holes,
Insert charges,
Long fuses, trailing.

Old Chris packing holes,
Tamping,
Tamping,
Tamping...
Lighting fuses,
Tamping,
Tamping,
Tamping.

My father said he'd yell
"We need to go!"

Old Chris
Seemed never to hear,
Tamping,
Tamping,
Tamping,
Until finally...
Sauntering out
Before the rumbling Thump.

I can see the two,
Chris and my father,
Just a boy,
Lost in lignite clouds,
Coughing.

Don't be scared in the face of darkness.
Let it cloak you inside its blankets.
There is nothing to see nor to hear
in this numbing cocoon - it's safe here.

Fear the light - it deceives, it blinds,
Lures you in with its warmth, but hides
gravest dangers right in the shallows.
Where there's light there're always shadows.

When a shadow crawls, reaches for you
It's too late to run. Your fate is doomed.

my friend called the other night
all tangled up in a thorny mess
but i found no words that helped

or reassured him as he drove down 95
the voice automated system, his sole companion
the gps signals, amplified his shaky breaths

the scene was so ******
they barely identified his body
is this guilt that sits on my chest?

lapping at my heart like a dog
who sits in silence, waits in silence
for a friend that will never come home

I'm afraid to be
In my house
I'm afraid to be
Out of it
Because there
Are knocks
On my door
When nobody's there

Because I hear people
Whispering in
My basement

And because if
I sleep
Too long
I know it's
Gunna come back

It’s a fork you don’t want to walk
It’s a mind you don’t want to find
It’s a fall you don’t want to crawl
It’s a rage you don’t want to cage
It’s a trap you don’t want to snap
It’s a sin you don’t want in