Black Christmas

 

Fifty fucking years

this black snow’s fallen

every Christmas.

It fell on my father

and his father before him.

 

Stepping out

into the grey December light

cold and tired.

Home to a bath

and the warm hearth

of family.

 

A bond of men

tighter than brothers,

thicker than blood,

darker than midnight.

 

All gone now,

like dinosaurs

fossilised

beneath the earth

waiting to be found

by future generations

asking….

 

why and how

it died

when its heart

was big

and beating

and its bones

were strong.

 

We come to the surface

singing and defiant

and our communities

shudder for the past.

 

We will find work

or we will join the queues

 

and  at the new year,

if you can find one,

remember to

leave a black nugget

of coal on the doorstep

for strangers…