This is a work of mine.
It's called "Fire in the Hole."
Fire in the hole is what you're supposed
to shout three times before you set up the dynamite charge.
I don't know if they do that on roads,
but they sure do it on trails.
They send one man up at each end of the trail,
up each direction in the track or wherever
they're going to blast and shout out fire in the hole.
I was working for the Parks Service
on a trail crew in the northern Yosemite region in 1955.
"Squatting a day in the sun, one hand turning the steeldrill.
One, swinging the four pound singlejack hammer down.
Three inches an hour, granite bullhump boulder square
on the trail.
Above, the cliffs, of Piute Mountain waiver.
Sweat trickles down my back.
Why does this day keep coming into mind, a job in the rock
hills, aching arms, the muletracks,
arching blinding sky, noon sleep under snake-scaled juniper
limbs.
That the mind entered the tip of steel,
the arm fell like the breath.
The valley, reeling, on the pivot of that drill.
12 inches deep we packed the charge dynamite on mules
like frankincense.
Fire in the hole!
Jammed the plunger down through dust and sprinkling stone.
Strolled back to see arms and hands and shoulders free."