thoughts in the Paw Paw Tunnel, Chesapeake & Ohio Canal

thoughts in the Paw Paw Tunnel,
Chesapeake & Ohio Canal

there is no light
in the Paw Paw Tunnel,
just a towpath, wooden railing,
and patch of open
more than three thousand feet
away.

the Potomac bends here again
and again,
until carving a hole
through a mountain
made sense.

I wondered about
those Irish workers
who came to build it,
laboring in the dangerous, dark
work like the mines
they left behind.

I imagined them digging
by torch light,
shovels and picks punctuating
Gaelic curses,

and fires at night
on the ground where they slept.



though I could see
sunlight
at either end of the tunnel,
inside
it was black as night.

     (the Paw Paw Tunnel on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath was considered an engineering marvel when it was constructed in the days prior to the Civil War.)