How darkness echoes having been buried,
Absence of hurriers, darkness unhurried,
While depths of earth being no longer measured
By stomach churned seconds, and the long leisured
No longer count their leisure. Deep, deep down
In an undrawn drawer, rolled in old brown
Paper, the silver-set pendant is not jet,
But polished Barnsley hard, shining as wet
Even after all these years. Grandad fashioned it
On days between pickets, so impassioned it
Is difficult to recall the pressing need,
Urgent need for precise faceting. Freed
From necessity for one idle day,
She’d stood by the kerbside on Pithill Way
Watching the Anthracite Sisters process,
Barefooted and in closed ranks, to confess
Their calling to redundancy, the shock
At their closing order, to the headstock,
Unwound winding gear bound with steel hawsers
For scrap. Since then, or so she supposes,
The nominal value in that shaped shard
Of silver-set and hand-worked Barnsley hard,
Should remain as an echo, left buried
In her drawer, in darkness unhurried.
Dave
Alton
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