A voice below bellows
Your name, Dave,
Into the settling air of coal dust.
After you shut off the engines
And descend beneath the dragline's skeletal
Nose which canopies like a skyscraper on
Its side in mid-air
You confront a face
You cannot see in the descending sun. Shadow-still,
Enormous might engulfing over you
To the height of
The dragline's triple-tank wheels,
You see him--
The heels on his leather boots
Locked in the train-track grooves of dirt.
As he hands the notice to you
Its stiffness shakes
In your calloused hand.
You know that what is left of the day
Is becoming cold; and despite the smell
Of dirt there is a scent
Of watermelon in the damp air,
Although you do not know it as that smell
Or that there is a smell at all, really.
And yet a faintness of some half-knowledge
That touches its weight lightly in your mind
Drags itself into places you cannot touch.
Pulling out of his shadow
You think of how you might hand
This sheet to your wife
Like a child presenting to his mother
An award from school:
Your wife screaming laughter of relief
As she hugs the paper to her breast;
Or how your strong hand might sweat
As you pick up the receiver of the ringing phone,
Expecting that after saying "Hi"
That one of your college children's voices would end
The conversation there
For you to hand the vibrations
To your wife--but instead
That child
Congratulates you
For no longer destroying the land.
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