The Miner

The Miner

I'm thinking
I am a mine canary.
Yes, that's it. It explains
The perch, the half branch,
The encirclement of bars
And the sooty faces going randomly past.
I have my unique job.
I can take in the gas
And kip over in warning
Long before the working folk
Can be stopped dead in their occupation
By their occupation. It is not
A talent. All canaries are like this:
A matter of science, lung volume,
Sensitivity. In this line
Of work I can see
That generations down stream
My kind will be replaced
By some mechanical device, one
With horns and whistles and which
Does not have to be watched.
Oh, I catch your glances:
Weary, perfunctory, trained.
No one has died on my watch
So your watching grows gray and dull.
Yes, I am a canary.
You bring me into the mine
Absently though purposefully,
But I am not supposed to be here.
Topside I should be flying through acres
Of grief, safe branch to safe branch,
With you — clothes, hair, lungs, all
Clear of the loving dust — looking up,
Saying yellow bird,
How he reeks of sunlight.
But I am just the canary.
It is you that can decide what happens now.