Coal
Title
Coal
Subject
Coal Mining Exhibit
Description
Bond poem, Horrell photo
Creator
David Bond, Beth Martell, Doc Horrell
Source
The Light That Shatters Darkness Exhibit
Publisher
Special Collections Research Center, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Contributor
Special Collections Research Center, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Rights
Use Restrictions: To quote in print, or otherwise reproduce in whole or in part in any publication, including on the World Wide Web, any material from this collection, the researcher must obtain permission from (1) the owner of the physical property and (2) the holder of the copyright. Persons wishing to quote from this collection should consult Special Collections Research Center to determine copyright holders for information in this collection. Reproduction of any item must contain the complete citation to the original.
Format
Text, JPG photograph
Language
English
Type
Poetry, photography
Identifier
Exhibit Window #4
Original Format
Photography of miners leaving work
Text
Coal
I watch them step into the sun
when first light strikes the dark faces
and they pause, blink, bib overalls coated with labor,
metal lunch pails shingled with stickers and myth.
I want to look at the eyes, shining like dollars of streaked gold,
the eyes of the father and the father’s father,
exhausted eyes of twelve year-old boys stationed between mules.
I need to strip romance down to an ebony cough,
a limestone room falling in slow motion,
a never-ending high sulfur flow like a rush of black blood.
At 2 AM under fluorescence I’m reading John Keats
as my computer blinks an iambic refrain
and I’m thinking of the honeycombed earth
where the beauty of a ninety degree crosscut
and the truth of an articulating crawler are all that really matter.
I’m listening in vain for a voice rising above the rumble,
that constant pirouetting of worn rollers,
the occasional clank of a metal splice gone bad,
a dusty metaphor in a language I almost remember.
But when I plumb the deep-set eyes
and stand three hundred feet below
in a heavy darkness I can taste like marsh ferns and carbide,
tethered to strands of crusted cobalt,
waiting for the spiked wheelworks to splice through,
I see those blue flames of need-fire burst from pitch;
stone-deaf, I hear that voice, forging words hard as coal.
I watch them step into the sun
when first light strikes the dark faces
and they pause, blink, bib overalls coated with labor,
metal lunch pails shingled with stickers and myth.
I want to look at the eyes, shining like dollars of streaked gold,
the eyes of the father and the father’s father,
exhausted eyes of twelve year-old boys stationed between mules.
I need to strip romance down to an ebony cough,
a limestone room falling in slow motion,
a never-ending high sulfur flow like a rush of black blood.
At 2 AM under fluorescence I’m reading John Keats
as my computer blinks an iambic refrain
and I’m thinking of the honeycombed earth
where the beauty of a ninety degree crosscut
and the truth of an articulating crawler are all that really matter.
I’m listening in vain for a voice rising above the rumble,
that constant pirouetting of worn rollers,
the occasional clank of a metal splice gone bad,
a dusty metaphor in a language I almost remember.
But when I plumb the deep-set eyes
and stand three hundred feet below
in a heavy darkness I can taste like marsh ferns and carbide,
tethered to strands of crusted cobalt,
waiting for the spiked wheelworks to splice through,
I see those blue flames of need-fire burst from pitch;
stone-deaf, I hear that voice, forging words hard as coal.
Files
Collection
Citation
David Bond, Beth Martell, Doc Horrell, “Coal,” SCRC Virtual Museum at Southern Illinois University's Morris Library, accessed April 20, 2024, https://scrcexhibits.omeka.net/items/show/49.
Comments