The Miner Who Loved Dante (1924)

Dawn Potter

                       

But after I had reached a mountain’s foot,
At that point where the valley terminated,
Which had with consternation pierced my heart,

Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders,
Vested already with that planet’s rays
Which leadeth others right by every road.

            --Dante, the inferno, translated by H. W. Longfellow

I haven’t wandered your way lately, Nell,

            not since the police clapped me up

            and I lost my shift at Number 2.

But I remember the porch of our borrowed house

            and the pigeons that fluttered up from the roof

            when the old lady banged her pail.

And Sue . . .  remember Sue, who sang alto to your mezzo?

            In those ragged evenings, how stillness would sift

            over the men, old and young, listening from their steps

or squatting outside the canteen, half-full bottles of wine

            balanced on the ground between their knees.

            Night opened her arms to us like a favorite aunt,

like Lena—plump, smiling, one hand at rest on my damp hair

            as a hundred pigeons dipped over the river.

            And all the while, Nell, you and Sue sang

of hearts, of summer, of fleeting secrets,

            and we listeners believed that the songs were ours.

            For no one, no one in the world, was as alive then as we were.

[from Chestnut Ridge, a verse-history-in-progress of southwestern Pennsylvania]