1975

‘These creepy-crawlies will companion you,
As you dig, excavating the dank gloom.’
(Your pale guide challenges you to proceed,
In your thankless, esoteric research.)
‘Say farewell to gold pavements, those great towers.
Soon to dig this well won’t be for mere gain.’
Ere long another being knits a face
From desultory photons. Behind its smile…?
A ploy! Take care! Dismiss not your birthright,
Of which the flaxen-haired boy once carolled.
(You may recall how you might be taken up
At any moment?) Yea-! Whoosh…! Into daylight,
Crashing through the refectory window
Spiralling skyward, flailing, careering,

Kaleidoscopic, exultant, redeemed…!
Sure, you could continue mining the hole;
But look how the wee flame gutters and spits.
You’ll be caught in its familiarity
With all your fusty pals chewing your scalp
Scouring the seams for now and evermore-
Grateful for scraping blindly for fossils,
Staking special immunity from rain …
But, like your comrades, set in igneous rock,
Just craving for more obdurate contact…
Meantime, on the remote surface, whirls
The carousel of evaporation…
Chit-chat, drugs, bullies' taunts, and the usual
Rejoinders to subterranean fact.

24.01.09