Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to get back up, not as glum as it sounds |
Descent The questions drive us underground The answers lead us there Where mysteries are lost and found In caverns’ dark dank air The tunnels here twist and turn Labyrinths, they spiral down With too many canaries burnt And fewer secrets found Amidst the brightest lustrous veins Running through the rock Formations ancient, times unchanged Behind the minerals, locked Each stratum formed at points of change Of pressure, heat and time With patterns set, stones rearranged With quartz’ flecks out of line In deepest chambers, nature forged It streams at any cost Through captive canyons, nurtured gorge Dripping, echoed, lost Locked within their stalag, moor In amber trapped, a mite ‘tween teeth that push up from the floor, Stelic, flipped, sharp, tight With colours mooted in dark folds Most fools will never see Patterns aged, bronze, silver, gold ‘midst potholes in the scree Obstructions most effective, formed Escher like in frame A matter of perspective drawn The angles of the game It’s all in the prospector’s eye, a diamond in the rough? It all depends how hard you try, is a lump of coal enough? It factors on the quarry sought, the gems for which you gleam Wealth, but laced with worry bought Pitched health, hemmed in a seam Cleaved in slate and granite beds Precipitated dreams Sedimented round our heads, A bitter limestone sheen Veneers waxing, coated slow To shroud a pure vein Calling, taxing those who know For those who tap the same, tap cautious when refining ore, careful round life’s juts Protrusions rarely minor, for they can leave open cuts Bleeding patterns in a wreath Deep, buried in the past …you’ll never find what lies beneath, when working open cast |