There are lilies in the valley
lofty clouds up in the sky
there are spots of brown on butterflies
now floating gently by
there’s a ringing from the mountain
from a lone and lonely hole
there’s a miner in his tunnel
digging towards the mountain’s soul.
He is raising up his hammer
as he drives it into stone
and his cave is metronomic
with a cold and piercing tone.
And the songbirds are now singing
and the Autumn air is chill
and the mine has long stopped giving
but the miner’s swinging still
He is doubling his fury
at the endless wall of rock
He is swinging at the horror
of the silence if he stopped.
He is swinging at the horror
of the silence if he stopped.
Here the air is hot and stagnant
and the cave is dry and bare
and the miner is still digging
though he doesn’t know to where.
There is nothing kept before him,
nothing he could hope to find,
that would bring him any closer
to the man he left behind.
Still the sweat drips from his heaving sides
to salt the dusty ground-
still he works as if the rock might hide
the thing he’s never found.
Now the sun sets in its glory
as it slips beneath the tide
but its light is long forgotten
by the miner still inside-
in his sprawling, aimless tunnels
both his hands are searing pain
but he will not let this stop him
while the wall of rock remains.
There’s flesh and stone on either end
of his colossal steel
and the tool carves deeper fractures
than could ever hope to heal
but the miner does not waver
and the digging never ends
and the miner swings
and swings and swings
and swings and swings
again.
