The Abandoned Mine –

The Abandoned Mine

The Abandoned Mine – Flickr

Gaunt, against a lowering sky, With steely fingers interlaced,
and capped with a motionless wheel,The poppet head looks down upon its lesser satellites,
clustered ‘neath its towering heights.
A huddled group of sheds and stores, with staring windows, broken doors.
Deserted cage and empty bin, and engine room all quiet within.

A skeleton, I thought, of what had once been life personified.
A throbbing pulsing heart of war and strife waged ‘gainst Mother Earth.
But today, a useless heap, forgotten, dead, with rot and decay rearing grisly head.
A haunt of ghostly silent flitting shapes, O’er which Time, its lonely mantle drapes.

But even as I looked, it seemed to change,
and wheels commenced to turn, and forges glow.
And signal bells to ring, and whistles blow, and belts to move, and furnaces to roar.
I turned again towards the brace and saw the shaft head open up, and suddenly
the earth was spewing forth its living load from rattling cages.

Miner’s faces glowed with sweat and dirt, to toil and flirt with Death,
and wrest a treasure from the earth.
I rubbed my startled eyes and looked once more,
but Time with mighty sponge wiped out the vision, and as night came down,
I wandered back towards the town, leaving a stillness, deathly, silent, cold.

A derelict abandoned. How man’s hope and lust for wealth and power in the land,
is turned by God’s all-powerful hand to rust, and dust.

Philip C. Fryer