Travel Haiku - Disappearning Gem - Appalachia Poem by john tiong chunghoo

childhood river
so small
it has become

(published by Chronogram
New York based print magazine
in its July 2008 issue)

appalachia blues
echoing in the mountains
the rattlings of bulldozers

One of the most biologically diverse regions of the world, and also one of America's natural beauties, Appalachia is being scoured by a crude technique of coal collecting called 'mountaintop removal/valley fill, ' turning what once was green to gray, round to flat, and majestic to muddled. Bulldozers and oversized dragline scoopers roar to and fro in clouds of dirt and smoke. So far, over a million acres of mountaintops have been cleared and thousands of miles of streams have been buried.