The Ghosts of Mine Shaft #9

You can hear them in the wind,

A whisper in the trees.
You can hear them as the canyon
Echoes on the breeze.

Breathless voices hush the night
Clinging to the dimming light.
Living now between the times
The ghosts of mine shaft #9.

Solid mountain burst and cracked.
Tumbled stones fell and stacked.
They sought but they could never find
The miners working #9.

Today old-timers tell the tale
Of miners gone beyond the pale -
Who come around from time to time;
The ghosts of mine shaft #9.

One old boy swears he was saved
When hunted by a hungry cat.
They scared off that mountain lion;
Those ghosts of mine shaft #9.

Sometimes in the mist of morn,
Just before a coming storm,
A song will flutter through the leaves;
A paean to those spirits free -

The ghosts of mine shaft #9;
How they scared that mountain lion!
And now they do it all the time;
The ghosts of mine shaft #9.

(Dedicated to Denise, a hunter of ghosts and abandoned mines.)

Copyright © 2008 by Jacob Anson. All rights reserved.