Many years ago being brave
Meant arms outstretched flailing for
Balance ten feet above as acrobats
On a huge pipeline bringing tailings
From the Noranda Copper Mine
Impurities steering away from
Civilized society and hauled
Far into the woods behind
Our town hidden by clumps of hills
Tinge of unsightly brown crust
where one misstep meant
Plunging into mysterious gluck
Where a young body may dissolve
From chemicals then rapture
Into Heaven sooner than parents
Believed humanly possible.
© Richard L. Provencher
