I stand upon this tree-lined hilltop,

The view is fine, it’s picturesque.

The air is clear, if rather cold,

I think of myself as Newtonesque,

Standing, not on the shoulders of giants,

But on a century of a miner’s spoils,

Overlaid with some garden soil.

This was a coal mine, a generation ago,

Covered up, like a battered wife’s bruise,

And handed back to Nature’s charms,

Where trees and vegetation grow.

 

This land was hewn from underground,

On rocks dug out by a miner’s arms,

Enough slag to build a lofty mound,

 Now, safely returned to the bird song’s sound.

 

I begin to fully understand,

Nature’s need to reclaim her land.