OLD WORKINGS
Maldwyn Morgan

Unseen, darkness fills the place where men
Took to task a million years of trees.

Black water runs on rails that have sung
The song of trams.

The end of the tunnel, where the mountain won,
Is wet with drippings and with tears -

A tired symphony of echoes.
That water jack; was it Dai's or Twin's

Or Gareth's - who should have been a clerk!
Look! Those timbers notched by Rees -

Flower stems holding up a forest.
That tram - the chalk mark, what does it say?

Number three hundred and four - a scribbled essay
On living with coal.