(Wise coalminers of old took canaries down the mines to monitor for poisonous gases. It was the smart - and long lived - miner who kept one eye on the bird.

But what would YOU do if your attention is called elsewhere, if you are told to pay it no heed?

Go to the hospitals, the nursing homes, the haunts of the disabled - the cemeteries. Your answer lies there!)

Look up, they say, look up!
Behold the glorious view.
The coalface glitters like diamonds,
Such wealth is there waiting for you.
Black gold is there for the taking,
And a little with you we will share.
So look up, look up to the coalface,
And shield not your eyes from the glare.

Half my life I gazed at the coalface
As I scrabbled and scratched for my wage.
But my health's now all but left me,
And the next pit I'll see is the grave.
My tools lay about me now useless.
And what little strength is left I must keep.
But as I stumbled and fell at my station,
I gazed in horror to the ground at my feet


Look up, look up to the coalface,
They say to those who are left.
The clerk, the labourer, the assistant,
The secretary, and all of the rest.
Look up, look up to the coalface,
Fix your mind on the pick in your hand
Heed not the fallen beside you,
Or their call to look where you stand.

But half my life I had been gazing upward,
Pick and shovel firmly in hand.
But now I look all around me,
As waist deep in dead canaries we stand.

D.J. Ludlow Copyright 2001