Another Poem about the West Virginia Mining Disaster

Aftermath: West Virginia Mining Disaster

The four bodies of those we hope survived
Are carried out one-by-one.
Twenty-nine ambulances make the slow, winding drive
To coroners and funeral homes.

Sorrows transforms into anger; then visceral hatred
For the murderers, the owners and operators
Who so eagerly exchanged lives for riches.

“I’ll cut his f-ing throat ear to ear,” the wife of a dead miner screamed,
Brandishing a paring knife.
But the words didn’t reach the offices of Massey Energy.

“If he sets foot in Raleigh County again, his head’s gonna get blowed off,”
Shouted the fifteen-year old son of a dead miner—

Blown to smithereens, smashed like eggshells, smothered and burned,
Like the 29 dead of Upper Big Branch mine.


The above poem is partly fictional, based on how I imagined the families of the victims would feel. I do not advocate violence--but it would be understandable. I believe we can change an unjust situation through active nonviolent techniques. The great models in this regard are Jesus, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.