by Susan G. Duncan
600 feet down down where the weather don’t matter 800 souls worked the Illinois coal – in the heat the dark the knowledge that the souls of 800 fathers Saint Peter dontcha call me cuz I can’t go were gone before them to explosion cave-in another day older and deeper in debt or just plain despair. But that Wednesday at 3 o’clock rock of ages cleft for me let me hide the men heard its roar felt the fierce pull of air across their forearms the terrible suck of dust into every shaft knew the winch must have broken and the power failed knew they’d have to climb. It took them an hour – silent and single file to reach the surface to find the tall tipple twisted from its footings to find no shacks schoolhouse parsonage no mothers daughters wives With a backward cock of the scythe 800 miners made childless widowed orphaned Ezekiel saw the wheel way up in the middle of the air and the twister already 6 counties to the east.
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