powder touches down without a sound
two miles above sea level
shindeep in snow i stand alone
among the decorated evergreens
no company save the tracks behind me
and the weeping relics of boom days:
rail trestles to nowhere
ore cars overturned
headframes worndown and windblasted,
slowly brayed by the weight of their disuse
these grody hills of minespoiled marl
and twisted chunks of rusty metal everywhere
shindeep in snow i stand alone
among the sunbleached bones of the earth.
nemosum
nemosum