Poetry

AFP photo

By

Nasir Soomro

Death of a Coal Miner

It was a loss of life,

I’m dead in a coal mine,

Dying in a coal mine;

is the worst death imaginable,

Orphaned is my baby boy,

After off, I had to get him a toy, I inhaled deadly methane from a mine,

Suffocated to death,

Lost in the statistics,

Measures were at a minimum to rescue me,

Enormity of the ordeal was much,

Protection laws found in books;

Books are eaten by termites,

Inside dark, cavernous mines

I am lying dead,

My wife doesn’t know

Nor my ageing mother.

My body is stuck stockpile,

Still unknown, still unrecognized.

Dedicated to six Coal Miners who were killed and several others wounded after a coal mine caved in following an explosion in the mine in the Kalat area of Balochistan on 5th April, 2018

Nasir Soomro

Nasir Soomro is from Pakistan, he is working with the Energy Department, at the Government of Sindh, Pakistan. He is author of the book, ‘Peaks and Perils of Life’ (English Poetry) and is currently working on his semi-autobiographical novel in English.