FIRST DAY UNDERGROUND -

(for Mal)

A dawn refugee,
Huddled with others,
I feel the cage drop:
A bucket falling
Down the black-walled shaft
Of a dream’s deep well.

I sit in their den,
Like a man-made cave,
At the tunnel’s start.
The helmeted lamps
Usherette faces:
Once sketched by Van Gogh.
Swear words link their talk;
One asks me my name
And offers me snuff:
Pepper finger-pinched
From a tiny tin;
I refuse shyly
And pocket my hands.
They all acknowledge
My youth and newness
I wait for orders.

I follow Byron,
Big and confident,
Munching an apple,
A real expert
On budgerigars -
Or so he tells me.
He spits out a pip
And tells me he’s boss
Of a cage-bird club.
I begin to feel
That I’m a miner,
Walking the tunnel
(Its walls rough-plastered
With ancient bright-black);
I can smell the coal.
In the distant dark,
We can see men’s lights
Torching towards us:
A welcome of warmth
Like lit, village homes
Below a night hill.

We work in darkness,
We salvage supports -
Heavy as girders -
Down dry-aired tunnels:
The pressurised doors
Open as slowly
As thick, castle doors.
We’re working shadows
Behind a closed door,
We rest for small talk
And tinned sandwiches.
I imagine death:
The collapsing coal
Burying last screams;
Fossilising us
Through stilled centuries.
I open the door:
Chilled by the ghost cold.

We move carefully:
Like skilled men handling
Unexploded bombs.
In a timeless world,
We breathe in darkness
As dry as coal-dust.
We come to the belt:
Conveying starred coal
Quickly through tunnels -
To each man’s bright dream
Of surface sunshine.

We are at The Face:
With real miners.
They work busily
Like men performing
War operations;
Art’s solid shadows,
They peasant the dark.
Modern equipment
Dominates the place;
But the scene, I see,
Is old as mining:
Men, with their sleeves rolled
And faces blackened,
Labouring for coal.
I crouch amongst props
Lower than my height;
I can hear them ping.
Someone, out of sight,
Sings proudly in Welsh.

The first shift over,
We ride the fast belt;
I’m behind Byron,
Who tells me to duck
When the ceiling’s low.
We sit on dug coal,
Magic-carpeting
Through dark galleries.

The full cage ascends
To a dull brightness;
We hand in helmets, lamps
And equipment
For brass-coloured tabs.
I recall the frisk,
At my first shift’s start,
For matches and fags.
We head for the baths;
Amongst loud bragging,
Songs and blaspheming,
We wash out the dirt.

Dressed, I blow my nose:
My white hankie shows
The inhaled black specks.

10.

Outside, two o’clock,
I breathe in deeply.
The afternoon sun,
Like a lamp’s bright spray,
Washes away thoughts
As dark as mined coal.

Published in VISITORS by Peter Thabit Jones, 1986

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FIRST DAY UNDERGROUND