The Old Mine Poem by Gert Strydom

Some would call it almost romantic,
but to me it’s nothing more
than dilapidated
the way that the rusting
huge wheel hangs now silent
never to again turn
while the bright evening star
starts shining just above it

and a snail pecking brown ibis
flies up startled by me
screech out its dismay
and there’s no solitude, only loneliness
and a huge forgotten rusting spanner
now looking brittle where it’s stuck in a spar

and somehow the men that worked here before
are now long buried and done
and the place is empty deserted
with grass and reeds sprouting out

and some bats fly up into the sky
right out of one of the open shafts
when I throw a rock into it
and hear its sound echoing down.