Tuesday Mar 19

Doug-Van-Gundy.jpg DOUG VAN GUNDY’S poems and essays have appeared in many journals, including The Oxford American, Ecotone, The Louisville Review, The Fretboard Journal, and Goldenseal.   His work has also been featured online at From the Fishouse: an audio archive of emerging poets. Doug teaches English at West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon and plays fiddle, guitar, and mandolin in the old-time music duo Born Old.  His book of poems, A Life Above Water is published by Red Hen Press.
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 Slagheap
 
The playground beside
my elementary school
was built on a slagheap
over the lateral shafts
 
of the old Norton mines. 
The sealed-off seam that ran
under the baseball diamond
still smoldered as the result
 
of some decades-old fire,
hundreds of feet below,
keeping the surface dirt so warm
that no matter how deep
 
elsewhere, snow would never
stay on the infield and the grass   
behind the bleachers lay exposed
and green, even in January.