A Poem by Robert Nisbet

Men's Voices:  Miners

He lived in the capital for twenty years
but often, in a near-sleep dark,
recalled the men's pub voices,
family voices, confidential, cordial,
with their narratives of work and character.
He rarely heard the voices raised in anger
(as they must at times have been)
but would sometimes hear, distantly,
as on a hillside, rising to sky,
the voices, with the women's,
drawn, by funeral or simple impulse,
to four-part harmony.
Sometimes, hushed and husky voices,
shadowed by dust and time.

Robert Nisbet is a Welsh poet who has one chapbook, Merlin's Lane (Prolebooks, 2011) and has over 200 poems published in magazines in Britain and the USA, including Main Street Rag, San Pedro River Review, Red River Review and Illya's Honey.