The Past Catches Up
1
I am from the rusted rain
seeded by steel plant smoke
black pearl grit that fell
in layers of grey white grey white
when the coke oven exhaust
would blast into the summer air
its thick rank billows
we kids would watch the wind
if it blew in our direction
clothes would be brought in off the line
or else rewashed and hung another day
the fine particle dust
would settle on car roofs
still hot enough to fuse with the paint
white would gradually turn black
then red as grit rusted
no teacher at recess said
you kids better get inside
stop breathing it in
we kids never felt
those particles settle
in our hair
on tongues
into our lungs
it was a slightly annoying consequence
of the industry
that put food on the table
food our mothers cooked
while the blast furnace
spewed the air
to pepper the food we ate
at night we’d breathe it into our dreams
2
all these years later
I wake from that east coast dream
coughing
I wonder if this is the price
I still pay for growing up
where paying the rent
and feeding the kids
was worth the cold damp steel poison price
where the spew of commerce
was considered a viable trade off
for life expectancy
a time when they may not
have known better
surely there are no buried studies
that showed the ravages
of this blast furnace debris
on the lungs of those who breathed it in
ate it in the food
drank it in our water
when I cough for no reason
in dry air damp air fresh air
short of breath
from drowning in iron smoke
I taste that pollution pulsation
I still call home
This is the last piece in the chapbook and it echos the ‘I am’ from first piece. The incidents are real – bringing the wash is or rewashing it or timing the hanging to avoid the blast furnace dusts. My father didn’t realize how corrosive this dust was until we were washing the car one day and the fused particles were impossible to clean off the roof of the car. The grit used because of its iron content.
Not mentioned here is that in the areas immediate to the still plant families were forced to move because the soil had become poisoned with arsenic & other steel plant effluvia. This poisoning was know & denied by the powers that be. Those homes were abandoned with some compensation. The incidence of cancers, lung infections & birth deformities that radiate out from that area became too significant to ignore.
There was no real concern for decades about how the chemicals from this industry affected people’s health. By the time the steel plant closed areas of it were considered the most polluted in North America. Perfect place for your kids to play, now that the land has been capped in the tar ponds reclamation project.
Although my home wasn’t that close, my school was, my job was, so I did experience some of the damage which results in my slightly dry cough. There is no compensation for that, nor was the compensation to those people who had to move enough to make up for the family members lost to the poison of making a living.
previous Brown Betty posts:
Man With A Past 1 https://wp.me/p1RtxU-3B3
When I Was A Young Boy https://wp.me/p1RtxU-3By
Home (not of the brave) https://wp.me/p1RtxU-3Cg
Nailed https://wp.me/p1RtxU-3D9
Unmasked https://wp.me/p1RtxU-3EE
The Colliery https://wp.me/p1RtxU-3HG
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