These Hills, These Mountains

These hills... These mountains...

Blobarrick from Mt. Pisgah, Carbon County, PA

Worn yet timeless
The oldest of the old
The spirits disturbed
By the plundering of coal

And the stripping of the hardwood

Slumber again 

Among the rocks
And the Mountain Laurel.

The restless spirits
Of the Lenape ancients
Roam these mountains
With the younger spirits.
Their imprint is forever
On the Mauch Chunk -
The Sleeping Bear.

The voices of the ancestors
Echo through the Gorge
From the Deitscherei in the south
To the coal towns to the north.
All of us are part of this Great Walk;
Generation after generation
Here on these hills... These mountains...

                                          - Robert L. Schreiwer, 2019