Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, UNDER THE SOUND OF VOICES, by JOSEPHINE WINSLOW JOHNSON


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

UNDER THE SOUND OF VOICES, by                     Poet's Biography
Last Line: Shatters the granite of a world.
Subject(s): Voices


-- Returning as they have always returned,
Descending the shafts again. Re-entering the tunneled darkness,
The violence over. The strikers and talkers,
All the yeast, the maggots, the uneasy fermenting over,
The loud leaders shot. The stubborn walled,
-- Stone-circled above instead of below earth --
The mayors and the sheriffs and the lies,
The sourceless shots, the night-riding, over.
Crows on the ditched food. Conditions altered.
The dead voiceless. The living doled.
All things adjusted.
... All things adjusted
-- But down in the darkness,
Under the sound of voices, under the lawful clanging,
Under the drills and the shafts, and the steel moving again,
Grow the invisible tunnels, the caves hollowed and cracking,
The shale crumbled, the ancient rocks gnawed under,
The sound, loud and unheard, of subterranean waters
Rising nearer, breaking the iron dikes and ore,
The once impregnable layers of diorite ...
And unseen, unheard, this invisible mining
Tunnels the stratum of an ancient stronghold,
Shatters the granite of a world.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net