Down into a seemingly endless dark hole men go with picks and shovels. Down below the mountains of Kentucky, and West Virginia. Listening to the water as it drips down over the rocks, they go beneath the earth. Off of an elevator into a dark and damp world, filled with dusty black rocks. They walk or ride a rail towards the end of the line, where they break the ribs of the earth. Shovel by shovel they tear at the black parts of the underside of now hollow mountains. Stripping out the guts of what is left until another vein can be found. There is no way to know the time or if the sun has risen or not. They simply dig a little further, sending the black rock on it's way out to who knows where. At the end of a shift, they crawl back out of the midnight colored hole, and try to wash off the dust of the earth that clings to them like so much ink. Laying down their weary bones and resting a spell, they rise at an appointed time to do it again.  Back into the pit of midnight to mine out the black rock. This is the life of a miner of coal.