Voices in the Coalshed: Shadows

In this week’s Voices in the Coalshed, we welcome Malcolm Henshall from Heartlines Creative Writing Group who explores the shadows of the Mining Industry in his poem ‘Shadows’.

Images ©NCMME

A shadow of his former self,

shadows from the past,

the old,

the new

and what is gone.

First the pick,

and then machine,

and last the miner, too.

A key worker of his time,

deemed no longer key,

fading into a different shadow.

We did not know

what we now know.

In time,

emerging from the shadows,

brighter, lighter

as the sun appears

from behind the clouds

shining anew

onto a reclaimed, untrodden,

and strange land.