{"id":3672,"date":"2014-12-09T12:06:31","date_gmt":"2014-12-09T11:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/?p=3672"},"modified":"2014-12-09T12:06:31","modified_gmt":"2014-12-09T11:06:31","slug":"retired-miner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/retired-miner\/","title":{"rendered":"The Retired Miner"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"miner\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Arms hold the paper now<\/p>\n

that once tattooed and blue cut coal,<\/p>\n

fifty years a mole.<\/p>\n

Not tall, stubborn and strong<\/p>\n

and trusted by the men who worked his stall.<\/p>\n

Sound below ground.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In 1926, first out, last back.<\/p>\n

Shot rabbits for the pot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here he sits, spits in the fire,<\/p>\n

drinking his tea cold, thinking.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Does he remember or forget<\/p>\n

as he tears and folds a paper spill<\/p>\n

to light a Player\u2019s cigarette,<\/p>\n

eyes distant blue, ears deaf?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Father<\/strong><\/p>\n

Down the mine he can shut out the fact<\/p>\n

that Jack is just a smiling photograph.<\/p>\n

Down there you need your concentration to assess safety:<\/p>\n

is the air pure, pit props secure,<\/p>\n

is the dynamite right?\u00a0 Fright if the cage stops.<\/p>\n

Today flood fire or burial?<\/p>\n

Everything measured in tons.<\/p>\n

In trying to avoid his own death,<\/p>\n

he blanks the reality of his son\u2019s.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Emerging, daylight\u00a0 illuminates the memory:<\/p>\n

1940: \u00a0Jack in a box for Christmas.<\/p>\n

Fell out of bed from an army bunk,<\/p>\n

Thud onto his head, body awry.<\/p>\n

What an action to die in!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In a mine of his own darkness,<\/p>\n

the father becomes his own pit prop<\/p>\n

but with no dynamite to explode<\/p>\n

the rock face of his sorrow.<\/p>\n

His heart in a cage stopped.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"cicely\"<\/a>I decided to be a writer at the age of eleven.\u00a0 Life intervened and although I kept writing and had poems published in for instance, <\/em>Chapman and <\/em>New Writing Scotland, it was not until last year that I published my first novel, a detective story called \u2018<\/em>Ivory<\/a>\u2019 and was commissioned to write a play about the history of Brodick castle for the <\/em>National Trust for Scotland.\u00a0 This year NTS commissioned another play to commemorate WW1 on Arran and this was performed very successfully at the Community Theatre, Lamlash.<\/em><\/p>\n

I live in Whiting Bay, am married to the painter Nicky Gill<\/a>. We have 2 children and 4 grandchildren.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  \u00a0   Arms hold the paper now that once tattooed and blue cut coal, fifty years a mole. Not tall, stubborn and strong and trusted by the men who worked his stall. Sound below ground.   In 1926, first out, last back. Shot rabbits for the pot.   Here he sits, spits in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poety","category-the-arts"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Retired Miner - Many Roads<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/retired-miner\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Albert\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/bodhicharya.org\\\/manyroads\\\/retired-miner\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/bodhicharya.org\\\/manyroads\\\/retired-miner\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Albert\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/bodhicharya.org\\\/manyroads\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/d65113da84d62fbc945e6ee35f823e2a\"},\"headline\":\"The Retired Miner\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-12-09T11:06:31+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/bodhicharya.org\\\/manyroads\\\/retired-miner\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":328,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/bodhicharya.org\\\/manyroads\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/bodhicharya.org\\\/manyroads\\\/retired-miner\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/bodhicharya.org\\\/manyroads\\\/files\\\/2014\\\/11\\\/miner.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Poetry\",\"The Arts\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/bodhicharya.org\\\/manyroads\\\/retired-miner\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/bodhicharya.org\\\/manyroads\\\/retired-miner\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/bodhicharya.org\\\/manyroads\\\/retired-miner\\\/\",\"name\":\"The Retired Miner - 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Not tall, stubborn and strong and trusted by the men who worked his stall. Sound below ground.   In 1926, first out, last back. Shot rabbits for the pot.   Here he sits, spits in the…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3672\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}