It must be great to be a miner

A Poem From The Field

“It Must Be Great to Be the Miner”

It must be great to be the miner,

thought the mountain,

as the first machines arrived,

their iron teeth singing songs of profit.

No one asked its permission to be opened,

no ceremony for its first wound.

Just drills and dust—

and a silence that trembled like prayer.

It must be great to be the miner,

thought the river,

watching itself swallowed by mud,

its reflection blurred beneath the trucks.

They said it was for development,

as they buried the dam,

and the cattle learned thirst by name.

No water for the people,

only promises poured into dry hands.

It must be great to be the miner,

thought the air,

heavy with dust and the taste of metal.

Children cough where pine trees once caught the wind.

Windows wear brown like mourning cloth.

Even the sun looks tired,

its light diffused by diesel dreams.

It must be great to be the miner,

thought the grave,

as they pulled bones from their resting place,

saying “throw these away.”

Powdered ancestors packed into boxes,

carried under torchlight

to make space for lithium.

Only one grave rebuilt—

a monument to selective memory.

It must be great to be the miner,

to promise roads, schools, and boreholes,

then vanish when the ink dries.

To call destruction “investment,”

and still be praised by the powerful.

To speak of “community”

while the community coughs.

To say “employment”

when you mean cheap hands,

to say “partnership”

while hiding the profits in another tongue.

Oh, it must be glorious to be the miner—

to rename wounds as “projects,”

to weigh souls in tonnes per month,

to measure worth by what can be exported.

To stand on a dying hill and say,

we are helping the people.

It must be great to be the miner,

thought the villager,

walking home through dust thick as regret,

past a school without doors,

a river without reflection,

a land that used to sing.

He looked at the trucks,

their bellies full of white stone,

and whispered—

what a miracle it must be,

to take from the earth,

and still call it progress.