Long gone miners

The bright sun snuffs to darkness and there's a growing smell of earth and rock

As huddled, caged men creak and bang, dropping down the dank mine

Cool air breathes past the shaft’s soaked timber and rot

The revolving beat of steam pumps fades, with their steady churn and whine

Choking whirling pickaxes strike gleaming seams by faltering candlelight

Muscles pouring sweat push ore-laden trucks along tunnels of rusting rails

No longer knowing if their grey-slated homes above have passed from day to night

Gruesome deaths and maiming slowly drip blood on that blasted maze of many tales

Such was the life of the brave menfolk that worked their years down the pits

Close knit community, never living far from a poor soul who’d perished in some sorrow

A shortened life of trauma, pain, illness, stoicism, dazed manliness and grit

Their passions and loves boiled a plenty with no guarantee they’d be here tomorrow

Tender young boys of the flowering mountain dragged to be men in those black, deep hell holes

But now little do tourists know or care, walking, laughing, all safe, taking their selfies on top

Glancing in the museum, the distant echoes of the stories are walked past and no longer told

The bored young boys of today loudly chewing their gum and sitting idly there, drinking their pop