Thursday, February 17, 2011

MAN CAGE

a yellow, steel man cage,
held twelve men.
i was one of them.
suspended over a 400 ft. dropshaft.
like the innards of a spider,
we were.
a one-inch steel cable on a drum,
like the thread on a spool,
the crane lowered us to the depths
of the deep, deep tunnel.
at 50 ft., the smell gets in a man's nose.
dankness, dynamite powder, rock dust.
I can still smell it.
carbon monoxide, diesel fumes.
i looked at the faces.
haggard, tired, red, bloodshot eyes.
saw the stickers advertising companies,
dynamite, tools, on American Bridge hardhats.
metal lunchboxes, thermos bottles, cigarettes...
dangling from chapped lips.
we went down.
not to see sunlight.
only darkness.

2 comments:

  1. Rich....you must know how those guys who were trapped for 69 days in the Chilean mine felt! Interesting number!

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  2. No Mike...being down there for 69 days had to be a horror. Longest I ever spent underground was 36 hours...it was brutal.

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