DIAMOND INCUBATORS

By Maleah Day Warner


Historic mining photographs: Courtesy of Maleah Day Warner

I listen to the man at the door selling solar power.

My childhood was powered by coal. I’m fifth-generation Utahn, fourth generation born and raised in Emery County — a nest of diamond incubators. 

My ancestors escaped to Utah, but religious freedom doesn’t make a living. They dug irrigation canals and discovered Castle Valley’s black secret: 

Coal can fuel an economy.

Miners chip away at dinosaur dinners rotting in mountains’ cavernous stomachs. Tunnel mouths spit out carts laden with black lumps of petrified peat. 

Diamond incubators, interrupted. Who can wait 3 billion years when babies are hungry now? 

Coal dollars funded my birth, education, even my prom dress.

Grandpa died from coal dust, coughing blood. Black lung.

Coal is my past.

What will be my children’s future?


Maleah Day Warner is author of the memoir “Lies of the Magpie.” Her upcoming memoir “Homesewn Panties” chronicles the misadventures of growing up a Mormon Democrat in rural Utah and finding her place between Mormonism and feminism while wearing home-sewn clothes.