Night Shift

Underground it is always night,

As sunlight never penetrates these depths,

And helmet lights' spreading beams show the way.

There is a long walk bent double to reach the coalface,

And black scars down the miners' spines record these journeys.

Above, 'Evans-Long-Stick' travels his round lighting the streets' gas lamps;

The traffic stops;

Pubs close;

People sleep.

The darkness is welcomed as a time of rest.

It is silent and the moonlight casts slow-moving shadows along the twisting terraced streets.

Everything is quiet.

The birds roost;

Sheep sleep in their favourite recess on the mountain slope;

Even Bryn Jones' yapping black and white sheepdog,

Gently snores and twitches as it chases Joe Soap's bitch on heat.

But underground the earth is not sleeping as she groans and moans and presses on the wooden pit props;

She does not like men stealing her black gold.

At times, with frustration, she collapses the roof with an angry roar,

Or lets slowly seeping, invisible gas do its work,

Killing the plumed canary and causes a mass retreat.

At times she releases a gigantic wall of rushing water,

Through a freshly cut coalface,

And frightened miners scamper in panic away from a watery grave.

Sometimes out of spite, she explodes her breath,

Incensed at mankind plundering her wealth,

Sending a howling ball of fire straight out of hell, 

Through the narrow passages,

Incinerating all those caught in its path.

Who can forget the anguish,

As weeping wives huddle in their shawls beneath the slowly rotating wheel,

Or a mass funeral where dozens have died,

And the whole valley in black mourns.

Rhondda coal has always cost blood.

But strangely, even the earth has to sleep and rest,

From this constant battle with its robbers.

Between 2am and 4, weariness makes her rest,

And peace and silence spreads through the galleries,

Until she decides again to awake,

And continue the struggle.

(1972)