Reminders.

 

Reminders.

 

Rain washed to fresh Cornish air

smells still of historic unfairness.

Hinterland littered with shafts,
now leveled, age -old flat lodes
make for visitors much pleasure
as unrushed they enjoy the stroll.

Beauty abounds, yet tourists
who see through pit walls hear
tiny sounds of youth trapped in 
earth-falls and gripped with fear.

 

Paths used in heaving carts heavy

with mine-waste, boys' backs bound

with thick ropes these worked-out pits

leave little ghosts of those lost thousands

who met bitter ends when children, unfitted

for mining, fell within hell's blackened mouth.

 

Heartache discolours a land's
heritage when sad child abuse
of bal-maidens and young lads
add reminders of shifts' ruthless
length while tired almost to death
shoe-less torn feet stumbled home
with but a pittance, eyes half closed
bent to breadless tables children slept
often still clothed before starting again.

  

Hard those days when the rich grew

fat on young backs of martyred poor.

 

Reviews

[Chris Shaw]

Dear Fay, your posted image is superb. The Cornwall I know from holidays. This write does indeed remind us of how children have been abused in the past so the rich can get richer. It beggar's belief the number of young lives that were lost back then. Not just in the mines of Cornwall but all over the land in both manufacturing and agriculture. Written with such eloquence and your meticulous use of language is always noted. Beautiful poetry Fay.

Chris

[Fay Slimm]

My humble thanks Chris for your visit and kind review - it is ever a subject of importance to me that so many children met early deaths in such as the mines and we need reminders that young souls were and are in other lands abused. I am pleased you saw the sad message and agree that we must never forget .............. warm wishes from Fay...

[Chris Shaw]

How right you are Fay, the abuse continues. Here and overseas, sadly :(

[barleygirl]

WOW! I knew nothing of this topic, but I didn't need to google becuz you laid it all out with such vivid details. I love how you paint things to a level of vividness, long hours, bare hurting feet stumbling, SHOWING us how this came about, while also conveying a heartbreaking sense of sorrow. I honestly have no interest in visiting/exploring historical sites, but when someone has an imagination like in your poem, relating to the humanity of historical significance, I can understand why people care (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

[Fay Slimm]

Ah - thanking you Margie for dropping by and reading my words on the hard life of mining in earlier times........ I live near the vicinity of several mine shafts and the stories told of those days make me want to pay tribute to those labouring under conditions the poem mentions. I wrote a trilogy of what went on in the first mines around here and brought a lightheartedness into the reads when I could - - have a peek when you can of my latest posting called Stones Know... on a similar theme but read of the young lasses and lads making their choices of who, when and where while deep underground..... twill give you a smile as it did me..... Huggles galore - - from Fay

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

This is so sad; and worse still, the fact that this abuse continues today. In India, children are forced to work in underground tunnels that they dig by hand to get mica, which is then used in most makeup. Women paint their faces to be beautiful with eyeshadows and highlighters that contain this shimmery mica, having no clue that children are forced to dig for it and others have died for it when the tunnels have collapsed. Because they are so impoverished, families rely upon this money to eat; and they make a pittance of twenty-five cents per day doing it. The rich always seem to grow fat on the young backs of the martyred poor.

[Fay Slimm]

Linda your review although welcome adds to the sadness that children are having to work at putting bread on tables in such a dangerous way and in this technical age it seems even more shaming that poverty forces these conditions on those unable to choose........ many thanks for your visit to read and comment on tragic "Reminders." - - and may poets' caring voices raised in outcry against child abuse become pointers for change.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

this poem makes me see red and spit...to do that to children, to use them this way....and put them in harm's way just to achieve, pursue the almighty buck...
this happens much too often in too many places...and surely ones we have not even heard about.
this is real poetry...the kind that speaks out from a really strong voice.
who else will say it?
it is our calling...and you do it so well...
the martyred poor could at least smile a little knowing someone cares.

[Fay Slimm]

My sincere thanks to you jacob - we know that children in lost of places today undergo unbelievable abuses and I thought it needed to be brought to readers notice how deeply the Cornish mines were at one time involved in child labour as so many were lost in the pits....... my gratitude for your visit and review.