Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, INDEPENDENCE MINE, by LAURIE A. EVANS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

INDEPENDENCE MINE, by                    
First Line: By what light do we call a day
Alternate Author Name(s): Evans-dinneen, Laurie A.
Subject(s): Gold; Mines & Miners


-- photo in gold bunkhouse circa 1940

By what light do we call a day
when in the depths of a mountain
so freshly stained by glacier, men
line a mile in for every hour on
the clock. When one shaft closes,
another opens weeping
men, rock, and mineral like a wound
that never heals. At the old portal
the breath of the mountain
exhales a wind of voices from years
past, slowly melting and freezing
the packed snow, as though stuffed
there with a purpose to silence
their suffering. But really,
who am I to say in these Gold Rush days
what is and isn't, the city dust still
on my heels and the smiles frozen
still on the faces of the pictured
young men who lean dazedly upon
each other, smudged with the clearness
of a day well spent. As I rub my fingers
across the ice in the gaping maw
of portal, it is the coldness of those
not in the photo that takes my breath away.

Copyright © Laurie A. Evans-Dinneen.
http://www.unl.edu/schooner/psmain.htm
Prarie Schooner is a literary quarterly published since 1927 which
publishes original stories, poetry, essays, and reviews. Regularly cited in the
prize journals, the magazine is considered one of the most prestigious of the
campus-based literary journals.







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