What Just Happened?
Sara Berkeley Tolchin
'What just happened,
and where does it leave us?'
'Same place,' he said, but that's not true.
We are in a different place now,
this place is new, we've never been here
before, the air's a different shape,
no colours I've ever seen, the view
has shifted, and the ground
is shifting too, not so easy
to walk around without a fall.
Still, what is there to risk
in this endeavour if not all?
Miners are trained when things go wrong
to lie on the ground, breathe slow
and shallow, wait until the light breaks at last
through a chink and they are found.
Sometimes behind their self-made barricades
they lie there breathing low
until their lives rise up and float around
above them, no colours they've ever seen,
memories shedding light in the coal-dust gloom,
making room for what's to come.
We've been lying here for quite some time.
I'm wondering when we'll be done
with all the shallow breathing
and the oxygen conservation.
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