(for Roy Palmer)

Brush the sooted trees at Cradley,
Tramp the ironworks’ ash at Brierley,
Taste the coal-dust, swirled
Round pitheads for the Earl of Dudley
Whose miners stole for weekend loot
Bronze pheasants from the airy woods
My grandfather helped pen for shoots, Another world.

Visitors plucked one branch of Hell.
Gas seeped, ropes snapped, the bad seam fell
On John Dawes, twenty-three.
Women in sackcloth swore as well
As miners. Clean, in the chain shop,
They watched the anvil, levered up
Bar for the hammer’s perfect drop,
Iron like toffee.

Songs, then strikes, then deportations:
Praise all who risked for fair conditions,
All who took part.
Smog lifts from China’s power stations.
Who was the girl who sat alone
High on the coach, watched chimneys loom,
Who cried for joy, since this was home?
Oh my black heart.