Memories of Coal: Miner Dollars

Memories of Coal: Miner Dollars

Coal Mining Exhibit

Bond poem, Horrell photo, Martell background

David Bond, Beth Martell, Doc Horrell

The Light That Shatters Darkness Exhibit

Special Collections Research Center, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University Carbondale

Special Collections Research Center, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University Carbondale

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.

Text, JPG photographs

English

Poetry, photography

Exhibit Window #13

Photographs of miner eating lunch, miner dollars

Memories of Coal: Miner Dollars

Deep underground
between tapestries

of dusted coal face
and black shale

seams they chisel
loose pyrite discs

called “dollars”
dense auric crystals

not worth much
yet hoarded and

caressed as if time
present and time

past might be
captured in an icon

and I wonder if
they ever feel

sudden yearning
an uneasy hunger for

shallow seas among
the calamites and

those scarabs of sun
a world of blind

fish and crickets
where some fear

the darkness
yet return to it.