Alan M. Kent
Three Scats Behind
Only a millennium on, but I’ve made it,
just here, to the wreckage of Creegbrawse.
So the legends d’go, so lore has it,
Joseph of Arimathea and the Christ Child
came here to pray and preach.
On the rise up from Todpool’s trunk
I wonder what words were spoken,
and how the Lord’s tributing went,
marvelling at the Gospel criss-crossing this land
like the confusion of adits, levels and stark shafts below
- whole crucifixions propping the bleddy place up.
Iron nails in place to stop stone-sky from fallin’ in.
It still booms down there, the way stope-shot blasts.
It still cuts deep, hard as tungsten-carbide drill-bits,
fur thinkin’ back on ‘ut,
Christ wudn’ a bad Cap’n all told,
and still, they sing that ‘Joseph was a tin man
And the miners loved him well.’
There are unforgiving shafts near and far,
below and above, their presence everywhere,
chimneys and head-gear givin’ Heaven a good poke,
steel-framed cones over frightening depths,
green copper deposits left in the tailings
where I’m told, ‘Hooper’s party slocked ‘ut in.’
Then comes the epiphany: the lesson:
I realise I am like all of my lapse nation,
and dreckly’ll do fine for the soul,
an’ I’ll finish what I’m ‘bout first.
Like all religion
- be it devil, druid, disciple,
seems I’m never ahead, but always three scats behind.
Page(s) 24
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