Down in the dark of Sand Cave,
January stone on his chest,
Floyd Collins called for daylight—
his boots wedged in the narrow black,
his lamp a single trembling star
between the sleeping bones of the earth.
They brought him bread and coffee,

threaded through with hope,
and the talk of rescue—
shouting down the passage
where Floyd’s voice echoed
like something half-born,
half-forgotten.

Above, men argued by lantern,
farmers and newsmen and engineers,
their pickaxes flaring
in the hungry winter air.
Children pressed to the rail fence,
their faces pale as limestone,
waiting for a miracle,
waiting for the news.
Fifty-five feet they dug,
shaft by shaft,
the mud a hungry animal
swallowing every tool.

The world turned its gaze
to Edmonson County,
as if a single life
could fill the emptiness
beneath the hills.

Nights, the wind would carry
the sound of prayer—
wives and sisters
knitting hope on borrowed time,
a father pacing the bitter ground
while the cave pressed its secret
against the world above.

Floyd sang hymns to keep his fear,
dreamed of the sun on his back,
the green rise of spring
outside his father’s door.
But the cave had its own hunger,
its stone set like a final word.

In February, the song grew thin,
the lamp guttered,
the shaft filled with sorrow.
They could not bring him out—
not Floyd, not the hope
that lingers in narrow places.

The cave kept its secret.
The shaft, now green with moss,
remembers the hush of crowds,
the patience of men
with dust in their eyes.

Somewhere, the earth holds
the echo of a name—
Floyd Collins,
dreaming beneath Kentucky,
where the stone will not answer
but the people remember
how long a single voice
can call for home.