I have long since forgotten his name
(He was only around for my sophomore year at Dear Old State)
As he was universally known as “Coal Miner”,
Being of all things, a geology major,
The nickname being buttressed by one heroic drunk
In whose aftermath he brought forth, all Vesuvius-like,
A dark concoction of dirt, twigs, and some small bits of stone,
Though by and large he was reasonably diligent in his classwork ,
Maintaining his drinking and general decorum
Within sensible boundaries
Not adhered to by the general run of dwellers
In our brick bungalow of doubles and triples.
One perhaps-it’s-truly-Spring day just before finals week,
The Miner went off in an in aberrant and inexplicable rampage,
Replete with wall punching, blood letting,
And annihilation of light fixtures
Which spilled out of the dorm, across the academic commons,
And ended just inches from the Dean of Students himself.
It was the last any of us saw of The Coal Miner
Before he and his disappearance rode off together
As the stuff of undergraduate legend.
We later heard The Miner’s mother had died
Suddenly, unaccountably, down in Cortland,
Succumbing to some rare and misdiagnosed malady
(To be fair, it was one of those illnesses
Beyond the experience or worldview of small-town hospitalists)
And, with her, all his means of support, emotional and otherwise
Vanished like so much ash blown away
From the site of some ghastly fire.
To disprove the theory that God only sends us what we can stand,
The college regretted to inform him
That they were unable to provide
For the unfortunate contingency at hand,
And as such, his only mildly distinguished academic career
Was brought to an abrupt and unfortunate end.
We later heard he’d told one of the coterie of security officers
Who had wrestled him to the ground
(Thus preventing the Dean’s untimely
Though likely unlamented end)
That one of the faded, clumsy portraits
Depciting long-dead medical directors
Lining the entranceway corridor of that hospital back home
Had actually hissed to him
What do you want from us? We’re only men, after all.
(He’d been in the full-blown midst
Of his shock and grief at the time,
So the possibility of hallucination certainly couldn’t be discounted)
And one of his hall-mates swore upon his mother’s life
He’d seen the shoulders of the founder’s statue
(Heroic bronze figure outside of Waddington Hall
Smiling benevolently,palms upturned, hands outstretched
Offering a bounty of knowledge to all comers)
Actually began to droop a little bit after it had been passed
By a screaming, bloodied, raging Coal Miner,
Though that tale was the handiwork of Tommy Mulligan,
Who was sodden and given to pure foolishness
Remarkable even by our standards,
And I later heard the Coal Miner
Was living in a barely habitable cabin
Up on the shore of Saranac Lake
Where he had become a stonemason
Specializing in the restoration of headstones
Buffeted by epochs of mountain sleet
And Midwest-borne acid rains.
