The canaries singing ceased.
Lamps faltered; flickered; failed.
Fear and dread like an icy hand
gripped, and held fast our hearts.
Gas, the miner's nightmare:
joined our shift that day.
We breathed, but fearfully,
with lungs that barely worked.

Like sightless moles we moved,
along shafts; and seams,
in a subterranean world.
As the slow, relentless water,
dripped upon our heads,
Seeping, silently, into our bones,
creating problems for future days;
if they should come.

Our blackened, blistered, hands
traced the shaft,guiding us to the light of day:
rarely seen in our nocturnal world.
As skies were blocked from view,
by the early morning dawn and evening dusk.
If we ever saw the sun t'was through eyes;
reddened; smarting; inflamed by coal's gritty dust.

We guided the ponies out;
our boots, caked with a damp compacted mix,
grew heavier with every step.
Though we were luckier than some,
for us the hooter did not sound;
no gathering of family and friends,
at the head of the pit,
dreading what was to come.

Today, though, coal mining is different,
It's safer, no ponies, no birds.
Machinery now does the work.
Though there's danger even from that;
as white finger, not cosis's results.
There are baths now, I hear, at the pit,
a luxury, I wish we had had.

Mining's near dead now in Britain,
as coal is imported, these days.
It makes little sense, but explains...
why the bings, some that were higher than hills,
where brambles and crab apples grew.
(and kids played,in spite of the danger)
have been flattened,to make way for homes.

So with the death of the mines,
it's inevitable, landscapes have changed,
and hooters no longer are heard,
causing tears: bringing news of sadness and death.
though for men who once mined,despair has set in,
despite their view of the sun.

Communities, built over years, have now crumbled;
rather like old 'miners rows'
So you see, they're still there,
the tears, sadness, and death;
Only, just different, that's all !