Above-Below
by Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen — Read all 1,670 poems by Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
Above, huddled on old worked benches
of sprawling open-pit copper land,
sits a mining community of metal’s might,
the work force housed close by,
well over 2,000 people labor,
day and night,
stripping different grades
of dull colored rocks,
off the crust of the earth, until
the top becomes the bottom.
Below, 1,000 feet, drawn out and built
on steepness of an Arizona desert canyon,
lies a crumbling, swash-buckled town,
full of history and heros,
Mexican labor and family ties,
miniature locomotives and torn-down smelters.
Slag solidly pours over ‘Frisco River’s banks,
moonscape frozen in time’s indifference,
stoicly attesting to man’s great need
to reap natural resources.
Above, in the airy sunshine,
on the cliffs heights,
distant mountains are viewed,
monsoon clouds scud and dip.
Darkening skies and flashing bolts of light,
threaten to stop scurrying toy trucks,
and conveyors hurrying tread,
delivering crushed fragments of earth’s backbone
to acidic bath, leaching minerals spirit
from volcano’s fire.
Below, afternoons long gloom
shadows walls of rock, red stone turns grey,
and sedimental scraps of glorious heights
shift with patterning of rain’s dripping,
tumbling down onto roads curves,
blocking the only egress
this side of Coronado’s trail,
engorged river further impedes
human endeavors of conquering
mountains riches.
Above, rampant rage of wind and hail
pound and hammer mine’s lifeline of roads,
dissolving stable footing, creating
treacherous pools of sludgy highways,
bogging down gigantic weight
of world’s largest haul trucks,
slowing pace of tonnage required
to make a profit, to compensate
the men who do the grunt work,
to pay off life’s debts.
Below, cascades and sheets of liquid hell
rush and sweep over banks and levees,
canyon walls are hugged and kissed
by water’s moving force, digging
and swirling away the bits of land
which houses tenuously occupied for decades,
as the 100 year flood, born from
the heights above, sloughed off
by mighty mountain shoulders,
changes the lives of families continuity.
Above, the sun comes out,
and unremittingly shines, and dries
the new land formations...below,
as man rebuilds on copper expectations
and continues the cycle
of mining the metal
that conducts the human heartland.
Erin Moen
9/12/02
Thursday, October 31, 2002
I live "Above"...we arrived the year of 1992, soon after, there was a 50yr. flood, not as devastating as the pictures from 10 yrs. before, in the 100yr. flood.
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~michelle~
Ray
What can I add to all of the lovely comments you have recieved, besides a huge smile!! I knew from the first time I read you that you were going to be a hit!! You are very talented, never put your pen down, the world would be losing out!
Hugs,
Maria
and now I could envision it outside my door. Just a suggestion - to get it more
widely read, put it back in their editor and resave it...this is far too great a write
to be buried. PS-really want to read all of your work someday ! ...but, one day at a time, eh?
and such a joy to read.
your talent is so obvious.