Volume 10, No.6 - Jan 2002

Poem

The mineworker - an eulogy

Down in the bowels of the earth

Dark as devils soul

The beams of their torches are like a firmament

Ray of hope in the dark dangy palace of wealth and death

 

Their torturours duty is to find wealth in the dust

And darkness of the earth far below

Their fate is the end of their sordid lives through lust

And greed of the opulent few

 

Whose children are they? They are the children of destiny

Whose wives wait in trepidation, expectation and mortal fear

Fear unknown and immeasurable under the rubble of doom

For the survival of their children in honour of their ancetors

 

Sons of dust and dallars they do not know

Of wealth they do not understand

They do not know peace of mind or exaltation

For their torturous toil under mountainous dumps

 

Are they children of a lesser god?

That they can perish and be forgotten

And their mortal remains debased

Their humanity vandalized and dignity destroyed?

 

Who are they?

They are the working poor a pay-day away from poverty

Entombed in the belly of the beast in the dark and solitude

Of the last frontier deep in the bowels of earth

Never to be embraced by kith or kin through eternity

 

For time immemorial they are the last battalion

Creators of our wealth and conquest

For they have conquered the bowels of the earth

And vanquished the fearful last frontier beneath

Only to be swallowed in horror by mud, sand and water

Violent and explosive forces of nature and man unforgiving

Devour their lives for gold less than their lives

Bodies never interred with honour they deserve

Except in horrendous struggle for recognition in unity

They are the last battalion unrecognised

 

Twenty dead men buried alive in horrendous pain

Painful end to the beleaguered souls of innocent men

Give them honour for they are the creators of tomorrow

And ancestors of the world and devoured souls

Through sorrow and sufferance

Sacrificed their lives so that you and I may live