Two of my poems are featured in the Spring 2019 edition of The Watershed Journal. They’ve assembled submissions by writers from northwestern Pennsylvania. All of our pieces celebrate our place in northern Appalachia, some with folk wisdom like “Today” by Greg Clary and others with a nice convoluted wit like “Wait Not” by Byron Hoot.
My poem “Vespers in the Barrens” is featured in the print edition, now available online. It begins,
These hills were carved
by Carnegies’ and Thompsons’
full ferrous might.
The jack and pitch pine’s
brown paper needles
and rigid brawny cones
festoon the floor,
some magnate’s afterthought.
I wrote this poem after an evening spent near the place we call Shotgun Pond in the Scotia gamelands.
The second poem comes from a protest I organized several years ago. Former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett tried to open up our state parks to fracking. To get there, he rescinded a moratorium on drilling on parkland. He announced it going into the Memorial Day weekend. It was an act of incredible cowardice, especially by a man who had been a Captain in the 28th infantry division. It calls into question how we think about sacrifice.
Sacrifice. We give our animals, ourselves, or
our possessions to offer fealty, to plead for better days,
or ask for forgiveness, mercy, and justice from
the Almighty or the Holy Mother. Salve Regina
we sing from the pews or Kyrie eleison.
Sometimes we burn an effigy. Other times,
just a simple offering. Or, like Jeptha, we
give our daughters’ blood to the lord.
In religion and in those endeavor that mean most to us in family and in community, we talk of personal or shared sacrifice. Those who serve in the military “play the ultimate sacrifice.” But what is the sacrifice of the unwilling, of the animals, the land, the water, the neighbors, the children, the homes, and the families the fracking industry takes. These are not sacrifices. These are desecrations.
Peter Walks for Democracy 