Cold Sweet Tea Poem by Gwilym Williams

Cold Sweet Tea

Rating: 5.0


Boys, who can barely write, kneel
deep down, miles out to sea beneath
black-ribbed sands, before
the coal-face and pneumoconiosis.
Stripped to the waist, mine's as thin
as a pit prop; a crab-shadow clawing
for coal to make a rich man richer.
From time to time he swallows
cold sweet tea from a tin,
observed by a sleepy canary
and a blind pit pony in the light
of a Davy Lamp. When the clock
strikes I prepare his sink;
water, scrubbing brush, soap.
Listen for his footfall. The house,
within spitting distance of
the shaft, is going to its knees;
coming apart at its dusty seams.
Buckled and sagging, it creaks and
groans with each subsiding night.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Danny Reynolds 31 January 2008

Well, Gwilym, you've sent my mind off on a quest with this one. Harsh days of hard work where our own existence seemed to cause subsidence below the very framework we clung to. Welcome to Poemhunter. Danny.

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