Underground (a poem)

The image is a reproduction of the first view of trapped, but later rescued, miners in the San Jose Mine near Copiapo, Chile. The image was captured from a video taken with a Chilean Government video camera. In the Pike River Mine disaster that occurred in New Zealand three months later, in which 29 miners died, there is no such image and to this day the bodies have still not been recovered.

Underground by Judy Ray  In Chile and New Zealand, 2010   A rumble too loud, a silence too long. Families gather at the mine, and in surrounding desert a media tent city springs. Underground there is no glow to tell how night prolongs the day. They will be called heroes, champions, these miners in the …

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