"Greenwood"

Mountain faces are deeply pocked
With mine portals yawning wide
Or glory holes where ore is stripped
From the earth's gaunt rock ribbed side.

There stands the grimed smokestack so tall,
All Greenwood in its shelter —
Mute symbol of the busy time
When the town had a smelter.

Here lies the mounded dyke of slag,
Dark residue of the ore.
And a big busy town laid out
Where most miner's lived before.

For a time 'twas a ghostly town,
Smelter and most people gone.
Chemicals had killed all things green;
Bare ground, bare trees whitely shone.

But it gradually grew again,
Industries have slowly come.
Mines have opened, there's work to do
And business seems to hum.

But best of all throughout the years
All things have turned green again,
A new growth of trees carpets hills,
Greenwood proudly bears its name.


~ Frances McLean