For Those We Never Meet
Before the dawn could touch the pines,
_Or gild the ridges high,
The miners left their narrow homes
_Beneath the August sky.
No trumpet hailed their marching feet,
_No drum proclaimed their names;
The mountains watched them wind below
_Like sparks before a flame.
They kissed their wives, they crossed the creeks,
_They climbed through mist and rain;
With coal dust settled in their hands
_And fervor in their veins.
Past laurel thickets dark with dew,
_Past oak and chestnut shade,
They followed winding mountain roads
_Where older trails were made.
Toward Blair Mountain rose their course,
_Through hollows deep and long;
A thousand voices joined as one,
_A thousand made a song.
Not sung for glory or for gold,
_Nor carved for men of fame,
But for the children yet unborn
_Who would not know their names.
The ridges heard the rifles’ call,
_The valleys caught the sound;
The echoes leapt from slope to slope
_And rolled through mining ground.
Yet louder than the clash of arms,
_Or anger’s fleeting breath,
Was something carried in their hearts
_That would outlive their death.
For every nation finds its strength
_Not only in its great,
But in the common souls who choose
_To bear another’s weight.
The founders pledged a daring dream
_Beside the eastern sea;
These miners kept that promise still
_Among the hills set free.
They sought no place in marble halls,
_No statue in the square;
They only hoped tomorrow’s sun
_Might rise on days more fair.
And though the years swept swiftly on
_Like rivers to the sea,
Their footsteps crossed the continent
_For those they’d never see.
In mills beside the northern lakes,
_On farms of western grain,
In busy ports and factory towns,
_Their echoes still remain.
A father home before the dark,
_A child with books to read,
A safer hand upon the wheel—
_The harvest of their seed.
Two hundred fifty years have passed
_Since freedom’s torch was raised;
It burns because of common folk
_Whose names are seldom praised.
And when our children’s children stand
_Upon some distant street,
May they remember what was won
_By those they’d never meet.
Aneesh Agarwal is an 11th grader attending Sunset High School in Portland, Oregon.
This is a wonderful poem with historic implications about those selfless heroes whose names will never be known, but whose will and sacrifice shaped a country in desperate times with their unsung feats. I admire your young abilities that have presented us a gift that echoes through time.