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TWENTY-NINE MINERS

Twenty-nine miners

Went into the dark.

Never the sun again to see.

They were no whiners,

Not off on a lark,

Knowing, fast, they could cease to be.

Twenty-nine souls merged

With carbon and dust,

Fulfilling an ancient decree.

Twenty-nine lives verged

On corporate trust:

That they from danger would be free.

Twenty-nine fam’lies,

Anguish-stricken, wept.

Waiting thusly is hard to bear.

Twenty-nine fam’lies,

Their lone vigil kept,

Hoping for hope that was not there.

All of anation

Was kept in suspense—

Many times this witness they’d borne.

This sad sensation

Held them on a fence.

Like the fam’lies, they were forlorn.

But, in the end, news

Was not news at all;

Hope against hope was cruelly dashed.

Time, now, we must use

To lessen the pall,

Loosen the spirits that were mashed.

Shall we, now, wait, dumb

And deaf while the scourge

Is allowed to fester and rage?

Are we not, now, numb

And ready to urge

Those in charge to alter this page?

Alas, the miners

Are under the thumb

Firmly of those who will not yield.

It’s to these miners’

Aid we must now come;

Our collective pow’r we must wield.

Twenty-nine miners

Went into the dark.

Leaving their all under Earth’s floor.

Safety for miners

Should be our firm mark.

Let not there be twenty-nine more!