The Last Shift on Bloom

Twenty-seven years beneath these lights Breaking stone on twelve-hour nights Pyrotechnic stamped my pay Kept food on the table another day Foreman called us in at dawn Said by sundown they'd all be gone Rock ain't worth the fuel, they said Then shut the drills above our heads They counted credits, counted time Never counted lives like mine When the last ship lifted off of Bloom It took our living through the gloom They killed the lights and closed the gate Left us miners to our fate But there's still ore beneath my boots Bloom runs deeper than my roots Company's gone, but I'm still here Digging Bloom another year Barracks windows gathered frost Every empty room was something lost Mary packed what we could take Kids kept asking where we'd stay Some went looking Stanton way Some joined crews that wouldn't say Some took guns and learned real fast How a working town becomes the past They called it simple economics Funny how that word still haunts us When the last ship lifted off of Bloom It took our living through the gloom They killed the lights and closed the gate Left us miners to our fate But there's still ore beneath my boots Bloom runs deeper than my roots Company's gone, but I'm still here Digging Bloom another year Found an old drill two winters back Half froze over by the processing stack Got her running with borrowed parts Funny how machines got working hearts Now I mine for me and mine No corporate clock, no company sign What I pull from this frozen ground Pays for fuel to stick around Yeah, the last ship lifted off of Bloom Left empty halls and empty rooms They took their money, took their name But they never took away my trade There's still ore beneath my boots Bloom runs deeper than my roots Let Pyrotechnic disappear I'll still be mining another year Another year... Just another year...