By Steven Wade Veatch
Faint traces of a wagon road in
backcountry
curve to a gold mine hidden in the
trees.
The mine’s headframe reaches to the
sky—
a crown of confidence on unbreakable
dreams.
The ore sorting house rusts through
time
while moss invades stone foundations.
Blue pines rock and wild grasses tip
in the wind.
Gray clouds nod in the distance.
Miners once made their way with burning
candles
toward rhythmic clangs of hammers and
drills,
while stepping aside for donkey-drawn
ore cars
running on narrow rails deep underground.
Two men, with blistered hands,
pounded steel that drilled the rock
then packed dynamite in the holes
they made.
A rattail of fuse detonated a round with
a thundering blast.
Timbers in tight embrace held the
Earth in place
as spectral Tommyknockers scurried
and hid
in opaque blackness beyond the candle
flame
while golden veins and rich ore wait discovery.
Now the gold mine is silent, the
sheave wheel stopped.
The underground workings—still as
held breath.
The mine a monument to how the West
was won.
A progress secured by the lure of
gold.
Morning shadows cover yellow spills
of flowers
where deer dip down to browse nearby.
The mine still makes its claim on the
land
Harkening to better days and simpler
ways.
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Empire Lee mine, Cripple Creek mining district. Photo by Gene Mourning, courtesy of the Western Museum of Mining and Industry. |