Echoes Poem by peggi lennard

The echoes you hear when no one is near,
Are just buildings decaying with time,
And the scream in the air is the call of the crow,
Not the whispers of someone you knew long ago.
Not reflections of those that this place brings to mind.
Not the ones damned forever to linger behind.

The pit wheel is still, like the underground tomb
Of the miners who worked here and died
For the shirts on their backs and the food in their guts
And the fires in the belly of Old British Pride.
What is it you hope through this journey you'll find -
Those souls left forever to linger behind?

Did you think that your visit to times long since gone
Would erase thoughts of those you once met?
Do you know that their power holds you still in its grip,
Did you think that you'd ever forget?
Tonight, in your bed, will you gaze past your blind
To the place where you know they must linger behind.?

Will you see them still crawling through unending black,
Dressed in nothing but coal dust and sweat?
Will they kneel? Will they sing, thinking nothing of death
While it captures their lungs with each deep, choking breath?
Do you hear them again? Can you bring them to mind?
Those workmates whose lot is to linger behind?

Remember the way that the siren screamed out
While the earth shuddered, angry, beneath,
And women, white-faced, stood by locked pithead gates,
Their silence a mark of their shock and their grief?
Are you looking for answers, your thoughts too entwined
With those of your comrades who linger behind?

Are you begging a pardon you know they can't give?
Do you really think you were to blame?
When their ghosts fill your mind and won't let you be
Will you still think it right that you came?
Will it help at the end, when you hope that you'll find
Forgiveness from those who must linger behind.?