The Song of Daniel

The Song of Daniel Daniel died in the coal mine. Laughing, clean face walking down the slope, tool belt swinging on his side. A piece of slate fixed over his head. At twenty-nine Daniel's Ufe cut short by the crumbling mountain. Following his father's footsteps where they lead to pit and slope a wicked cathedral dark in the artificial light. The machine call of belts strained under the weight of coal. Daniel transparent under the weight of his load. -Michael Mooney tiÈTL H V: I "Npx In Early March, Driving through Virginia Often, good times come when you least expect, as now, on the road in a cold rain working toward snow, die highway flanked by scrub cedar and junkyards. A blue calm finds its level here in the world we form as we ride togetiier through this worn country. Clinch River moves thick and sluggish as an old man's blood on a raw morning. The mountain rises-there, always there, and we look to a long haul trailing Blue Diamond coal trucks, eating their spray, loving winter's Waterloo. -Mary E. O'Dell 71 ...