Slate

Grey skies, grey mountains, grey stone. 
Grey slag heaps ringing quarry towns. 
Wiry Welshmen grown grey
hauling, splitting, trimming. 

 Strike it one way and it is riven to sheets. 
Strike it the other, dense and dependable.
Generations of miners and craftsmen
gave roofs above, floors below. 

Hardscrabble houses for themselves.
The mines are tough, but tougher when closed. 
A material so imbued with history
cannot be a blank slate. 

Sean Winn came to writing late in life, but his poetry, fiction and essays have begun to appear in a number of literary magazines over the past year, including Pangyrus, Rappahannock Review, and The Ocotillo Review. After living in Hong Kong, Singapore and Indonesia, he now calls Austin, Texas home.