Poetry: Summerlight Child

I was born a girl in West Virginia

Outsiders teased me, called me

Coal miner’s daughter

As though such a label could

Define me

My father is not a coal miner

He is a musician and a carpenter

When I was a child, he carved

And formed the person

That I have become

There is no coal dust in my bones,

I do not toil beneath the ground

Or wash coal stained clothes

And care for my dying husband,

His lungs clogged

I was born in summer light

When all things have grown

And live in their golden time

I am a writer of songs

And also a singer

In the fair mountain weather

I have ridden a golden pony

Through an orchard of apples

Big as my child hands

And bigger still

Always, there is the growing,

Green world inside of me

For I was taught the mystery

Of growing things and

Of dead things

Of how all things change

And how they cycle together

One life thread weaving into

The next one and the next

And into myself

I am a flame that gives a beacon

And I am the touch that burns

And I am the tongue that cuts

But also I am the gentle hands

I am nurture and nature

Small things have come to me

For shelter and I have sheltered

They have come to me for kindness

And I have given kindness

They seek knowledge

I lead them to the great libraries

Where my own father stumbled

By himself, without aid

And where he led his children

My brothers and I

And so I was born in West Virginia

But I am not a coal miner’s daughter

I am the child of song and praise

Nature, music and creation

And peace and love

I am a contradiction, amalgamation

There is too much inside of me

Enough to drive me to madness

Or enough to show me through

To understanding