Finches in the Gloaming, a dark journey through autumn, is a collection of poetry spawned from life in the coal mining settlements of rural Appalachia. My father had to work bent over in an area that was only 42 inches in height, manually chipping away coal with a pick and loading it onto coal cars with a shovel, Xavier Somerfield says. The mountains have given us more than chunks of black carbon for our furnaces; they have blessed us with a culture that has prevailed through the harshest of conditions. Finches in the Gloaming is a reflection of that life. Xavier Somerfield incorporates shadows and seasons, mountain life and the passing of time into an ingenious blend. Long have these mountains bled Xavier Somerfield writes in Mountain Sorrow . Finches in the Gloaming also contains other noteworthy poems including, Montani Semper Liberi, Walking the Fence Line, Autumn Detaches, When Father was Late, and The Mines . Xavier Somerfield is the author of Coming Through the Wintersweet, © 2006, ISBN 1-4241-2511-1, Analemma Days, © 2006,