October 13, 2010

2200 feet deep in the earth
69 days and nights
33 mineral miners
17, or was it 20 days
          with no contact, no light
14 smokers
6 kilometers of tunnels
          to walk and run and smoke
3 shifts with jobs, mandated sleep
          leisure time to read, sing, write
2 teaspoons of canned tuna a day the first 20 days
2 milkshakes for snacks with three squares thereafter
1 rescue capsule, a NASA-inspired lozenge
          equipped with headphones for the ascent
una mariposa blanca, a white butterfly
          just before the collapse. We saw it
          and we slowed, said a miner,
          It was an angel.
No telling how long it might take to free them,
          if ever, to be lifted and as if from a chrysalis,
          one by one, to emerge
33 miners, lifelong miners and novices
          army veteran miners, mechanic miners
          miner poets and soccer miners
after 69 days
33 days of drilling
to 33 sirens sounding
33 cries and cheers
2000 reporters
16 million Chileans
millions more in thrall
for Florencio, the first, and Mario
          for Juan, Carlos and Jimmy
          Osman, Jose, and Claudio
          Alex and the rest who rose
          in the metal Phoenix
one mythical being after another
to his one lifetime on earth.