The bracken and the mountain ash
cleave to an open shaft;
a dropped stone makes a distant splash
as if a miner laughed
to find somebody come to see
and listen by the wild ash tree.
The wind sounds out the high-strung wire
across the tin mine moor.
Tremayne, Trevelyan, Tregire
have left for richer ore.
Their names are cut on lonely stones
to mark their foreign, Cornish bones.
The miners' digging days are done;
down are the walls they built.
There's no more metal to be won
beneath the spoil they spilt
but where they spat their apple seeds
green apples grow among the weeds.
Ah, Roy your writing makes me hear that wind on the high -strung wire, what a splendid piece! !
Thank you Margaret. It is a child hood memory of the Cornish moor near the old mining village of St. Newlyn East. Have a happy new year!
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
amazing as usual, good poem by good poet..