Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser
Page 12
Post office window, a hive of private boxes,
the hand of the man who withdraws, the woman who reaches
her hand
and the tall coughing man stamping an envelope.
The bus station and the great pale buses stopping for food;
April-glass-tinted, the yellow-aproned waitress;
coast-to-coast schedule on the plateglass window.
The man on the street and the camera eye:
he leaves the doctor's office, slammed door, doom,
any town looks like this one-street town.
Glass, wood, and naked eye : the movie-house
closed for the afternoon frames posters streaked with rain,
advertise “Racing Luck” and “Hitch-Hike Lady.”
Whistling, the train comes from a long way away,
slow, and the Negro watches it grow in the grey air,
the hotel man makes a note behind his potted palm.
Eyes of the tourist house, red-and-white filling station,
the eyes of the Negro, looking down the track,
hotel-man and hotel, cafeteria, camera.
And in the beerplace on the other sidewalk
always one's harsh night eyes over the beerglass
follow the waitress and the yellow apron.
The road flows over the bridge,
Gamoca pointer at the underpass,
opposite, Alloy, after a block of town.
What do you want—a cliff over a city?
A foreland, sloped to sea and overgrown with roses?
These people live here.
THE FACE OF THE DAM: VIVIAN JONES
On the hour he shuts the door and walks out of town;
he knows the place up the gorge where he can see
his locomotive rusted on the siding,
he sits and sees the river at his knee.
There, where the men crawl, landscaping the grounds
at the power-plant, he saw the blasts explode
the mouth of the tunnel that opened wider
when precious in the rock the white glass showed.
The old plantation-house (burned to the mud)
is a hill-acre of ground. The Negro woman throws
gay arches of water out from the front door.
It runs down, wild as grass, falls and flows.
On the quarter he remembers how they enlarged
the tunnel and the crews, finding the silica,
how the men came riding freights, got jobs here
and went into the tunnel-mouth to stay.
Never to be used, he thinks, never to spread its power,
jinx on the rock, curse on the power-plant,
hundreds breathed value, filled their lungs full of glass
(O the gay wind the clouds the many men).
On the half-hour he's at Hawk's Nest over the dam,
snow springs up as he reaches the great wall-face,
immense and pouring power, the mist of snow,
the fallen mist, the slope of water, glass.
O the gay snow the white dropped water, down,
all day the water rushes down its river,
unused, has done its death-work in the country,
proud gorge and festive water.
On the last quarter he pulls his heavy collar up,
feels in his pocket the picture of his girl,
touches for luck—he used to as he drove
after he left his engine; stamps in the deep snow.
And the snow clears and the dam stands in the gay weather,
O proud O white O water rolling down,
he turns and stamps this off his mind again
and on the hour walks again through town.
PRAISE OF THE COMMITTEE
These are the lines on which a committee is formed.
Almost as soon as work was begun in the tunnel
men began to die among dry drills. No masks.
Most of them were not from this valley.
The freights brought many every day from States
all up and down the Atlantic seaboard
and as far inland as Kentucky, Ohio.
After the work the camps were closed or burned.
The ambulance was going day and night,
White's undertaking business thriving and
his mother's cornfield put to a new use.
“Many of the shareholders at this meeting
were nervous about the division of the profits;
How much has the Company spent on lawsuits?
The man said $150,000. Special counsel:
I am familiar with the case. Not : one : cent.
‘Terms of the contract. Master liable.’
No reply. Great corporation disowning men who made….”
After the lawsuits had been instituted….
The Committee is a true reflection of the will of the people.
Every man is ill. The women are not affected,
This is not a contagious disease. A medical commission,
Dr. Hughes, Dr. Hayhurst examined the chest
of Raymond Johnson, and Dr. Harless, a former
company doctor. But he saw too many die,
he has written his letter to Washington.
The Committee meets regularly, wherever it can.
Here are Mrs. Jones, three lost sons, husband sick,
Mrs. Leek, cook for the bus cafeteria,
the men : George Robinson, leader and voice,
four other Negroes (three drills, one camp-boy)
Blankenship, the thin friendly man, Peyton the engineer,
Juanita absent, the one outsider member.
Here in the noise, loud belts of the shoe-repair shop,
meeting around the stove beneath the one bulb hanging.
They come late in the day. Many come with them
who pack the hall, wait in the thorough dark.
This is a defense committee. Unfinished business:
Two rounds of lawsuits, 200 cases
Now as to the crooked lawyers
If the men had worn masks, their use would have involved
time every hour to wash the sponge at mouth.
Tunnel, 3⅛ miles long. Much larger than
the Holland Tunnel or Pittsburgh's Liberty Tubes.
Total cost, say, $16,000,000.
This is the procedure of such a committee:
To consider the bill before the Senate.
To discuss relief.
Active members may be cut off relief,
16-mile walk to Fayetteville for cheque—
WEST VIRGINIA RELIEF ADMINISTRATION, #22991,
TO JOE HENIGAN, GAULEY BRIDGE, ONE AND 50/100,
WINONA NATIONAL BANK. PAID FROM STATE FUNDS.
Unless the Defense Committee acts;
the People's Press, supporting this fight,
signed editorials, sent in funds.
Clothing for tunnel-workers.
Rumored, that in the post office
parcels are intercepted.
Suspected : Conley. Sheriff, hotelman,
head of the town ring—
Company whispers. Spies,
The Racket.
Resolved, resolved.
George Robinson holds all their strength together:
To fight the companies to make somehow a future.
“At any rate, it is inadvisable to keep a community of dying
persons intact.”
“Senator Holt. Yes. This is the most barbarous example of
industrial construction that ever happened in the world.”
Please proceed.
“In a very general way Hippocrates' Epidemics speaks
of the metal digger who breathes with difficulty,
having a pain and wan complexion.
Pliny, the elder….”
“Present work of the Bureau of Mines….”
The dam's pure crystal slants upon the river.
A dark and n
oisy room, frozen two feet from stove.
The cough of habit. The sound of men in the hall
waiting for word.
These men breathe hard
but the committee has a voice of steel.
One climbs the hill on canes.
They have broken the hills and cracked the riches wide.
In this man's face
family leans out from two worlds of graves—
here is a room of eyes,
a single force looks out, reading our life.
Who stands over the river?
Whose feet go running in these rigid hills?
Who comes, warning the night,
shouting and young to waken our eyes?
Who runs through electric wires?
Who speaks down every road?
Their hands touched mastery; now they
demand an answer.
MEARL BLANKENSHIP
He stood against the stove
facing the fire—
Little warmth, no words,
loud machines.
Voted relief,
wished money mailed,
quietly under the crashing:
“I wake up choking, and my wife
rolls me over on my left side;
then I'm asleep in the dream I always see:
the tunnel choked
the dark wall coughing dust.
I have written a letter.
Send it to the city,
maybe to a paper
if it's all right.”
Dear Sir, my name is Mearl Blankenship.
I have Worked for the rhinehart & Dennis Co
Many days & many nights
& it was so dusty you couldn't hardly see the lights.
I helped nip steel for the drills
& helped lay the track in the tunnel
& done lots of drilling near the mouth of the tunnell
& when the shots went off the boss said
If you are going to work Venture back
& the boss was Mr. Andrews
& now he is dead and gone
But I am still here
a lingering along
He stood against the rock
facing the river
grey river grey face
the rock mottled behind him
like X-ray plate enlarged
diffuse and stony
his face against the stone.
J C Dunbar said that I was the very picture of health
when I went to Work at that tunnel.
I have lost eighteen lbs on that Rheinhart ground
and expecting to loose my life
& no settlement yet & I have sued the Co. twice
But when the lawyers got a settlement
they didn't want to talk to me
But I didn't know whether they were sleepy or not.
I am a Married Man and have a family. God
knows if they can do anything for me
it will be appreciated
if you can do anything for me
let me know soon
ABSALOM
I first discovered what was killing these men.
I had three sons who worked with their father in the tunnel:
Cecil, aged 23, Owen, aged 21, Shirley, aged 17.
They used to work in a coal mine, not steady work
for the mines were not going much of the time.
A power Co. foreman learned that we made home brew,
he formed a habit of dropping in evenings to drink,
persuading the boys and my husband—
give up their jobs and take this other work.
It would pay them better.
Shirley was my youngest son; the boy.
He went into the tunnel.
My heart my mother my heart my mother
My heart my coming into being.
My husband is not able to work.
He has it, according to the doctor.
We have been having a very hard time making a living since
this trouble came to us.
I saw the dust in the bottom of the tub.
The boy worked there about eighteen months,
came home one evening with a shortness of breath.
He said, “Mother, I cannot get my breath.”
Shirley was sick about three months.
I would carry him from his bed to the table,
from his bed to the porch, in my arms.
My heart is mine in the place of hearts,
They gave me back my heart, it lies in me.
When they took sick, right at the start, I saw a doctor.
I tried to get Dr. Harless to X-ray the boys.
He was the only man I had any confidence in,
the company doctor in the Kopper's mine,
but he would not see Shirley.
He did not know where his money was coming from.
I promised him half if he'd work to get compensation,
but even then he would not do anything.
I went on the road and begged the X-ray money,
the Charleston hospital made the lung pictures,
he took the case after the pictures were made.
And two or three doctors said the same thing.
The youngest boy did not get to go down there with me,
he lay and said, “Mother, when I die,
I want you to have them open me up and
see if that dust killed me.
Try to get compensation,
you will not have any way of making your living
when we are gone,
and the rest are going too.”
I have gained mastery over my heart
I have gained mastery over my two hands
I have gained mastery over the waters
I have gained mastery over the river.
The case of my son was the first of the line of lawsuits.
They sent the lawyers down and the doctors down;
they closed the electric sockets in the camps.
There was Shirley, and Cecil, Jeffrey and Oren,
Raymond Johnson, Clev and Oscar Anders,
Frank Lynch, Henry Palf, Mr. Pitch, a foreman;
a slim fellow who carried steel with my boys,
his name was Darnell, I believe. There were many others,
the towns of Glen Ferris, Alloy, where the white rock lies,
six miles away; Vanetta, Gauley Bridge,
Gamoca, Lockwood, the gullies,
the whole valley is witness.
I hitchhike eighteen miles, they make checks out.
They asked me how I keep the cow on $2.
I said one week, feed for the cow, one week, the children's
flour.
The oldest son was twenty-three.
The next son was twenty-one.
The youngest son was eighteen.
They called it pneumonia at first.
They would pronounce it fever.
Shirley asked that we try to find out.
That's how they learned what the trouble was.
I open out a way, they have covered my sky with crystal
I come forth by day, I am born a second time,
I force a way through, and I know the gate
I shall journey over the earth among the living.
He shall not be diminished, never;
I shall give a mouth to my son.
THE DISEASE
This is a lung disease. Silicate dust makes it.
The dust causing the growth of
This is the X-ray picture taken last April.
I would point out to you : these are the ribs;
this is the region of the breastbone;
this is the heart (a wide white shadow filled with blood).
In here of course is the swallowing tube, esophagus.
The windpipe. Spaces between the lungs.
Between the ribs?
Between the ribs. These are the collar bones.
Now, this lung's mottled, beginning, in these areas.
You'd say a snowstorm had struck the fellow's lungs.
About alike, that side and this side, top and bottom.
The first stage in this period in this case.
Let us have the second.
Come to the window again. Here is the heart.
More numerous nodules, thicker, see, in the upper lobes.
You will notice the increase : here, streaked fibrous tissue—
Indicating?
That indicates the progress in ten months' time.
And now, this year—short breathing, solid scars
even over the ribs, thick on both sides.
Blood vessels shut. Model conglomeration.
What stage?
Third stage. Each time I place my pencil point:
There and there and there, there, there.
“It is growing worse every day. At night
I get up to catch my breath. If I remained
flat on my back I believe I would die.”
It gradually chokes off the air cells in the lungs?
I am trying to say it the best I can.
That is what happens, isn't it?
A choking-off in the air cells?
Yes.
There is difficulty in breathing.
Yes.
And a painful cough?
Yes.
Does silicosis cause death?
Yes, sir.
GEORGE ROBINSON: BLUES
Gauley Bridge is a good town for Negroes, they let us stand
around, they let us stand
around on the sidewalks if we're black or brown.
Vanetta's over the trestle, and that's our town.
The hill makes breathing slow, slow breathing after you
row the river,
and the graveyard's on the hill, cold in the springtime blow,
the graveyard's up on high, and the town is down below.
Did you ever bury thirty-five men in a place in back of your
house,
thirty-five tunnel workers the doctors didn't attend,
died in the tunnel camps, under rocks, everywhere, world
without end.
When a man said I feel poorly, for any reason, any weakness
or such,
letting up when he couldn't keep going barely,
the Cap and company come and run him off the job surely.
I've put them
DOWN from the tunnel camps
to the graveyard on the hill,
tin-cans all about—it fixed them!—
TUNNELITIS
hold themselves up
at the side of a tree,
I can go right now
to that cemetery.
When the blast went off the boss would call out, Come, let's