Coal Face

Photo by Miltos Bottis on Unsplash

The black coal face glitters as the pick hits the surface in soft lamplight, chipping away at all our yesterdays, held frozen in time beyond the counting of a Childs attention.

Each strike breaks another piece away from the face, dark intent turned to warm stone, full of the passion of life that will burn when set to with a flame.

History doesn’t disappear, it transmutes into something, something harder. History rarely softens with age, the lens of scrutiny lacks compassion.

In the black rock are pressed the delicate leaves of plants that held insects that flitted from leaf to leaf in oxygen heavy air, unfiltered sunlight glinting on blued gossamer wings.

The air was clean, the light clear, the only sounds were the clicks and humming of things that flew or crawled, traversing a world that held to themselves, a simpler time.

And perhaps, the world will one day return to that, but today we are busy excavating the black stone of hearts and mines, dark and oily, as though they had been painted in pitch - and though we don’t see it with human eyes, auras shine through.

© Emma Steel

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