What Just Happened?

Sara Berkeley Tolchin

'What just happened,

and where does it leave us?'

'Same place,' he said, but that's not true.

We are in a different place now,

this place is new, we've never been here

before, the air's a different shape,

no colours I've ever seen, the view

has shifted, and the ground

is shifting too, not so easy

to walk around without a fall.

Still, what is there to risk

in this endeavour if not all?

Miners are trained when things go wrong

to lie on the ground, breathe slow

and shallow, wait until the light breaks at last

through a chink and they are found.

Sometimes behind their self-made barricades

they lie there breathing low

until their lives rise up and float around

above them, no colours they've ever seen,

memories shedding light in the coal-dust gloom,

making room for what's to come.

We've been lying here for quite some time.

I'm wondering when we'll be done

with all the shallow breathing

and the oxygen conservation.