rescue shift

My mother's family are West Virginia coal miners. But I've never known that life. My dad's family--Pittsburgh steel. I never really thought about the mining life until I started to write poetry. But there must be something, even just one small molecule in everyone that has coal mining in their blood, that takes you right back there. Anyway, this really isn't a time for sentimentality. But I thought I would put up this picture of some Slovak miners, and a Welsh miner prayer, just for a little hope for the miners who are caved in, maybe entombed now, and those men and women who are sacrificing everything to get them out.

The Coal Miners prayer.
By W.Calvert

Each dawn as we rise, lord we know all to well,
We face only one thing - a pit filled with hell.
To scratch out a living the best that we can,
But deep in the heart, lies the soul of a man.

With black covered faces, and hard calloused hands,
We work the dark tunnels, unable to stand.
To labour and toil as we harvest the coals,
We silently pray "lord please harvest our souls".