
        from FUGUE FOR AN OCTOBER AGE                             GHOSTS  1
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             This  countryside, like  much  of  the  countryside  in western
        PennsyIvania, is lyrically beautiful where it has  been  left  alone,
        incredibly ugly where it has been ravaged.  At first it was the log-
        gers, who cut away the virgin timber.  Then the coal companies moved
        in, tearing  open the earth, leaving behind great piles of shattered
        rock and fouling the ground water with sulfurous waste. And  now  it
        is  the  developers  with their sleazy shopping strips and parsimoni-
        ously conceived plans of lots.
             "The thing that gets me about all of this," I say to Ginny, "is
        that nobody has anything to show for it. The timber is all gone, the
        coal  has  been burned up and in thirty five years these jerry-built
        houses will have fallen apart."
             "It used to bother me a lot more than it does now," she says.
        "Eventually, you know, the earth will have it all back."
             I  turn  onto  the  road that I think leads to the mine.  It is
        almost twilight and the air has become  close  and muggy. "And  that
        might  happen  a  lot  sooner  we think," I say.  "The way I read it,
        there is no ecology problem, not really.   No matter what we  do  or
        don't do, the ecosystem is going to adjust itself to fit.   The only
        
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