The Goddess of Ore

Poem by Neile Graham

There are things revealed in the canny clammy deep 

only by working a seam for days for years for life--

past dilapidated deserted workings, past false leads 

past the stalled nooks of other explorers, past exploring.

Through darkness full of canary-choking pockets, 

teeming with the tiniest itchiest monsters. Darkness 

full of the big dark. The biggest dark. Your headlamp 

shifts from a nebula to an ember, mid-step. Your pickax 

heavy and dull, the sack dragging your shoulder to hell 

and back. You work forever, you work for life. Then 

each step back to the daylit world you think you're there 

(not yet); you think you'll never make it (you have)--

and there you are, cold sky emptying onto your face, 

even clouded you must shut your eyes, scuttle a moment 

back to the safe blanket of dark. Then gingerly re-emerge 

where everything is exposed, your rusted skin, your filth-

scabbed torn and ragged skin you only notice now. 

How long and how deep the scars are. Part of your harvest. 

When at last you bravely spread your work before you, 

you squint grimed eyes to see: the aging gems are beautiful; 

the purest black coal is beautiful. So, too, the cracked 

and blackened gems, the broken rocky coal, the ravages 

of your mind and scorched imagination, each and every 

bit of the blighted history that marks your flesh sublime.