In the underground rivers
Of West Moor and Palmersville.
There are guttering cap-lamps bound up in the roots
Where the coal is beginning again.
They are sinking slowly further
In between the shiftless seams,
To black pools in the bed of the world.
In their long home the miners are labouring still -
Gargling dust, going down in good order,
Their black-braided banners aloft,
Into flooding and firedamp, there to inherit
Once more the tiny corridors of the immense estate
They line with prints of Hedley's Coming Home.
We hardly hear of them.
There are the faint reports of spent economies,
Explosions in the ocean floor,
This is a reference to the painting entitled ‘Going Home’.  Hedley  painted scenes of everyday life in the North East of England. There is a subtle distinction between ‘coming’ and ‘going’. O'Brien may have wanted to create the sense of the miners coming towards the reader, seeking our attention. 

Fantasia on a Theme of James Wright