HARD COAL ANGELS

Sceala Clann Counsellor Location: Tir Na Nog

HARD COAL ANGELS

The coal banks in the snow
Like mounds of chocolate cake
Covered in confectioner's sugar
Dot the northeastern landscape
Like so many stars in the cold winter sky

Culm banks risen from years of toil
Grown so high, they are disguised
Among the rolling Pennsylvania hills
Tall monuments to the men who raised them
A half and hundred years ago

Energy emits from their cores
Spirits of the dead heat the surrounding air
The coal is alive with the past
Buried hopes and dreams of miners
Immigrants poor but proud, honest and true

No more a fitting tribute could be paid
To those who gave their lives for King Coal
Broken hearts, surrendered spirits
Rising high into the cold anthracite air
The lift off point for restless souls

Hands free from callouses, breathing easy at last
Acending from the black earth, the miners' final reward
Gossamer feathers, tipped in coal dust
Angels at last, fleeing the night
Gone into the Light

Leave the coal banks alone to pay homage
Memoralize those who held their heads high
Working men who stood up for each other
Underground heros gone straight to Heaven
Our beloved Hard Coal Angels, looking down from above

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HARD COAL ANGELS