Delprat’s Mine, Broken Hill
I often come across my students
on local trains, in coffee shops
or at the local shopping mall
or on the beach.
I usually give them a cool wave of the hand
or nod- nothing too intrusive.
Anyways, there I was in Broken Hill
during the July holidays
having driven over a thousand kilometres
the sparse but beautiful landscape of the Barrier Highway
much like a 3D film unravelling before me-
the red clay fields
the shrunken trees
the slouched gangly jogging of emus.
And there I was on top the town’s famous slag heap
at Delprat’s Mine
wearing a nerdy
white miner’s hat
and tight blue coat
with a steel safety
red belt and mandatory
lamp ready to descend
five hundred and
twenty five feet into
the bowels of the
earth in a hundred
year old blackbutt
lined carriage.
Behind me in the line,
I hear the familiar but annoying
squeaky male voice
of one of my Year 8 students:
‘How’s it going, Mr A?’
(from George Anderson's chapbook The Portal ( Holy & Intoxicated Publications, 2020).
A brochure from back in the day:
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