Sudbury, Ont.-based Chris Pritchard wrote the following poem after reading about the accident late last year at the deep Macassa gold mine just west of Kirkland Lake, Ont., where the search continues for two miners trapped underground.
Pritchard, who works for the mining research laboratories of the Canada Centre for Mineral and Energy Technology, is responsible for the monitoring of rockbursts and blasts around the Sudbury basin, with the Sudbury Local Telemetered Network.
The Rumble Deep Within
Timber and steel, cut and fill,
Mining men with iron will.
Knowing the risks, and the danger,
Fighting a foe, a violent stranger.
Supporting the ground
And drilling your round,
You feel the deep rumble, all around.
Where did it happen?
As you carry on, more aware,
Stresses are building, the face is working,
A violent stranger is waiting, lurking
And in an instant, the earth has failed you.
Rescue men, search and hope,
To see a light, or hear your call . . . silence
The waiting is endless, the hurting intense,
The rubble too great, the task immense.
Never to hear the tiny feet,
That ran to meet you at the street
They lie entombed in fractured ground,
As a family waits for a familiar sound.
Never to return.
(Dedicated to the lost Macassa miners)
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