Mountaintop Removal

Most of the men in my family worked coal.
One grandfather ran dozers,
the other bathed in axle grease.
My father lit powder charges—
each blast shook the hollows
until the ridges answered back.

I moved to Lexington for lab work,
drawing blood in a clean white coat.
My Seattle supervisor once stopped
on a mountain road, pocketed a lump of coal,
and placed it proudly on his desk like a trophy.

I had breathed that dust since birth.

They call it mountaintop removal—
a clearing of every tree and living root.
When I lost the foothills of Johnson County,
the flat blue horizon of central Kentucky
felt like an open wound.

They seed the scars with cheap fescue.
True restoration is slower—
native hardwoods, patient succession.
I began with moss and small truths:
a break in the clouds,
the rhythm of walking.

I am no longer the peak I was.
My plateau is wider now.
The sun reaches me all at once—
I have traded height
for room to grow a deciduous soul.