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.