>> Dedicated to the memory of all soldiers everywhere... and to Private George Edwin Ellison, a coal miner and the last British soldier killed in WWI.
This was a free write. When I wrote the first line I did not know the story teller was a WWI soldier.
I dug in the earth, I a miner and a beggar.
This was a free write. When I wrote the first line I did not know the story teller was a WWI soldier.
I dug in the earth, I a miner and a beggar.
The dirt heaved over me, in my
bleeding ears, up my bleeding nose
Into my screaming mouth, between my
grinding teeth
Into my mouth screaming with the exertion not to die.
Into my mouth screaming with the exertion not to die.
My eyes when opened after were bland bloodshot holes
In the mud that covered my face,
covered my race
Covered my creed, my persuasion, my passion…
me.
My eyes found my stone, my gem, my earth’s
offering.
It as well covered with mud, still captured the light;
And I would release it, it’s what
miners do… miners.
But not then, the air still screamed,
the air from me
And the air above me as the missiles
fell.
This mine was only a ditch in the ground
Where we cast our bodies down beneath
The ripping shards, shredding shards
of metals
Made from ores long before dug from
the earth.
And they kept coming down to rejoin their mother,
These metal canisters of death,
exploding around our trench.
My mates calling for their living
mothers, calling in their death,
While I only, only the stone calling,
my gem, my mother’s offering.
We somersaulted, we crawled, we clawed at the mother
Earth, the mother that shielded us,
to reach
The bunker whose entry, half closed
by bodies,
Seemed to fade back from us, as more
bodies fell.
Inside at last I gasped for nonexistent air,
Air gone from screaming, gone from screaming
shells.
I stabbed out a hole in the wall
begging it to stop
The wall was the enemy I stabbed to
make it stop.
Taking a small wooden box, was a chair, now a box,
I set the gem in the box, the box in
the hole and
Hammered in a beggar’s tin to mark
the place;
And I would return and would dig my mine
again.
Beggars journeyed from ditch to ditch, bodies fell
Missiles fell, rain fell, everything
for all time fell,
And I would sleep and dream of my gem,
knowing
A day would come when it would be
mine again.
I would dream of washing it pure and applying the skill,
The miner’s skill to cut the stone; a
skill I’ve known
All my life no one else knew, my
skill with hammer
And blade to cut until the facets
ring true for joy.
A day would come when it would be mine again,
But then I awoke in the mud and the
smoke
And the ditch and the screaming air,
and screamed
And thought the scream was the dream
and I slept.
It all stopped one day, the beggars stopped
The stabbing, screaming, falling all
stopped,
But not before we had journeyed so
far
Our dreams ended, ours dreams ceased,
our dreams stopped.
And the beggars washed and dressed and went
To find a place called home and I
with them
I with them to help them find home; it was my duty
I with them to help them find home; it was my duty
As chief beggar to help them find
home, my duty.
Months slid into years and years decades and I dreamt
Ever fading dreams it would be mine
again.
And we beggars sought maintenance and
silence
Looking to nail them to the ground,
but they floated away.
So I left and travelled for days to be the miner.
The miner again dug in familiar
earth, familiar
Like a mother, but not so reassuring
Still the old timbers emerged like a
tomb found.
A tomb found, a sarcophagus containing wealth
Unimaginable, a tin, a box, a stone,
my gem!
I raced to a stream and washed and laid
it in the sun
Not looking, I could not bear to see
it for joy.
I blindly covered it and took it to my shop
And my shop, my hammer, my blade and
skill
Were all dreams, were all dreams,
were all dreams;
Uncovered it was a mudrock, mine
again, but just a clod.
