On the day of the explosion

Shadows pointed towards the pithead:

In thesun the slagheap slept.

Down the lane came men in pitboots

Coughing oath-edged talk and pipe-smoke

Shouldering off the freshened silence.

One chased after rabbits; lost them;

Came back with a nest of lark’s eggs;

Showed them; lodged them in the grasses.

So they passed in beards and moleskins

Fathers brothers nicknames laughter

Through the tall gates standing open.

At noon there came a tremor; cows

Stopped chewing for a second; sun

Scarfed as in a heat-haze dimmed.

The dead go on before us they

Are sitting in God’s house in comfort

We shall see them face to face—

plian as lettering in the chapels

It was said and for a second

Wives saw men of the explosion

Larger than in life they managed—

Gold as on a coin or walking

Somehow from the sun towards them

One showing the eggs unbroken.