Sparks and the blunting of your blade.
Moss is collected, bark stripped
off the silverest of birches.
Call me peat. I give you the flame,
small and fuelled. You smell it
as it burns even this earth.
*
Remember that first giving:
its warmth carried in your hands,
strapped to your back, a rough cart.
You tunnel now; strip carbon black
from brown. Call me anthracite.
Ready me here for excavation.
Control your explosions – a network,
diamonding the seam in which I am.
Remember the giving.
And you, you find a safe place.
Detonate. A spark, explosion. Rock
splinters and falls. Set me aside.
from Earthworks (Stonewood Press)