Hershey Mine

we heard it was there and were looking for it
after a drive and long hike in the dark pine covered
Piute Mountains of the California Sierras
from a rocky ledge above we finally came upon
the remains of the old Hersey Mine
visible far below

because the rock strewn road was so steep, so bad
we could never have driven down
and expect to drive back up again
so, descending carefully on foot
we passed along the way a few abandoned
old trucks and a car that had started the
perilous ascent in the 1930’s and remained,
never to make the return

at the mine site we found mining equipment,
leaning wooden buildings, part of a locomotive,
rusty solid steel, great metal pieces laying about
everything, as if in the middle of their labors
they took a meal break and kept walking

about fifty years after they shut down
we entered the mouth of the gold mine
it was a dark hole, we were ill equiped,
and so we quickly turned around
the mine shack had tools, old dynamite boxes,
no dynamite, of course
.
the few small cabins were in shambles
we checked out those living quarters for the workers
here and there a tattered decoration,
a stained torn curtain
as in the large main building,
most furnishings were missing or destroyed
they must have carried out what they could
when they closed the place

only a few stragglers like us had
wandered there previously
it was too far back in the thick woods to easily discover
at that time we lived in a cabin in those woods,
casual day trippers wouldn’t have had
the time or the information to find the place

the dilapidated remains now sleep dust covered by time
somewhere deep in a rocky valley
up there in the Piute Mountains
after an hour of looking around we
climbed back up, that was it
and although we have spoken about
the old Hersey Mine, we never returned