I just read Stephen McGuire's Blog on mountaintop removal and a letter written to Daryl Hannah by a West Virginian included in a July 1 Huffington Post article,
Why I Was Arrested in Coal River, West Virginia by Daryl Hannah.
The sender of the letter to Hannah describes how "Every morning at 6 am my cat starts coughing." The writer describes the tortuous hell of living near WV's mountaintop removal. He/she closes with, "We are the poor of southern West Virginia."
Here's my daughter, standing in the Blue Ridge. My family has lived in the mountains of NC since the 1700's. My daughter, I have no doubt, is the last in my line to view these glorious mountains that those before us knew well. This earthly treasure is lost by the hour as would-be-ridge-dwellers seek to build their mammoth homes atop our mountains.
In the words of Hannah's letter writer, a son in West Virginia is being poisoned. The mountains are being obliterated and the rivers filled with sludge. People are dying by the thousands. Mining continues.
As a response to today's revisiting of significant loss of life and land, I'll share something I wrote upon being sickened at the scalping of a Carolina mountain due to steep-slope development. At the time, I had been reading about early land speculation in North Carolina. I had recently discovered a letter in a state library file written by Archibald McIntyre, NY Comptroller (1806-1821) to his son urging the purchase of North Carolina lands. McIntyre and his son-in-law, David Henderson were heavily involved in mining and operated companies such as the "North Elaba Ironworks, the McIntyre Mind and the Adirondack Iron Company" (Wikipedia 7-22-09).
Land Speculators: Book 37, Number 400
They came among us
when we were newborn.
“Act like a farmer to gain their trust,”
said lawyers from New York.
Vain janglers
babbling reason and chiming dollars
toward a farmer’s tethered pockets.
Were we eager to dream
a sturdy wagon, new shoes,
spring corn?
And later, as northern zines
sprouted promises to own
ripe and unspoiled lands,
deeds like old Doc Brown’s
were sought and sold
together with all rights,
privileges and appurtenances thereunto.
A day’s work done,
dealmakers clung
‘til the hand-shaker’s shadow
stretched like a caul
across some sawyer’s
virgin planks.
Our grandfathers signed,
and trace ink dried like dribbled milk
as we dreamt our youth
under the scrambling front porch vines
of a golden scuppernong.
Our history sleeps there still,
wrapped in speculation and transaction,
shaded by the twinning branch of a Carolina pine,
and rocked by the wafting trill
of some hopeful mother’s
mountain song.
©Scupper, Anuran, ©2004
===============
Finding speculation papers in a trunk.
Speculation Land Company collection, Ramsey Library Special Collections
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Comments
I thank you for this. Maybe this is one of those convergences you hear about, but my next post is about the history of land grabbing and the duping of the settlers who were there. It relates to education and the lack thereof, and of the greed of northeastern speculators. Quite the shameful piecce of American history.
I hope that you will continue to add your voice to mine and others.
I find myself being a big fan of Stephen's writing. Steep slope development is a travesty. Thank you. rAted!
But any less, and I might have missed a deeper layer that you are so good at leaving for those of us with the proclivity to reach those layers.
There is so much said here. Really felt this one. the image of your daughter - just perfect.
I think again of Wendell Berry who's written al his life to Warn. The natives saw coal has No Ever Dig. The release of dark, ominous, and vindictive (former living humans) spirit/souls. It's called: ' Spirit Necromancy?
Karmic energy?
`
Clearing - Wendell Berry.
Through elm, buckeye, thorn, box elder, redwood, whitehaw, locust thicket, all trees follow people neglect, through snarls and veils of honeysuckle, tangles, of grapes and bittersweet, sing, steel, the hard song of vision cutting in ...
... (it's a real long poem) ...
`
against indifference, the tracts of the bulldozer running to gullies; against weariness,
and dread of too much to do, the wish to make desire easy, the thought of rest.
`
"We don't bother nobody,
and we don't want nobody
to bother us," said:`the old
Women.
`
No more sumac and thorn, under honeysuckle ... clover an grass, and no clear pasture, on the hillside going back to woods, good cropland, to the bottom gone to weed. Through time, labor, the fret of effort, it sees cattle on the green slope adrift to the daily current of hunger .... then cutting saws ... quick fortunes, guns, quicker deaths, and the Greed bears down on those hills.
Memories, nest of birds, and graves. on and on:`
... pile up the brush high,
of pyre of cut trees,
once was, but rot and cover an old scar of the ground.
`
The dead elm, its stump and great trunk too heavy to move, we give the riddance to fire. Two days, two nights it burns white ash falling from it light as snow.
It goes into the air
What bore the wind
the wind will bear.
`
An evening comes
when we finish work and go,
stumblers under the folding sky,
the field clear behind us. apology to Wendell Berry.
Thanks scupper. It's the long shadow time of day. ache. re/cooperate. I agree. Shame. Horror. Total depravity.
You take care, as RickTres always says:`You Take care.
I thank you for this scupper.
I tip my hat to you.
The mountains need us to speak up.
You have did so very well.
I grew up in the Tennessee valley and fed my soul in the mountains of North Carolina with their cool streams and solitude. I recently found out that one of my favorite places for this has been developed with cabins and is a resort. I'm sure the thousands of butterflies that used to line the trails are gone. It makes my heart heavy.
Well said, Scupper.
When I last traveled 40, I was just mortified at the gaps.
"Almost heaven, West Virginia
Blue ridge mountains
Shenandoah river -
Life is old there
Older than the trees"
HJ- Beautiful lyric!
Thank you.
Blessings.
Peace.
Lorraine
Both you & Stephen are doing an incredible service, by calling our attention to this horrendous practice of corporate greed. Thank you
You'll get a lot of sympathy and hand wringing over this tragedy but until you convince these same people top actually change their lifestyles to a more sustainable way of doing things, the money interests will continue to win out.
We've got to get to sustainable. We've got to get ove our "I can't see it from my house," mentality.
rated