once, I labored deep—in a massive silver mine
packed in the rusted vise of a sinking cage
we quickly plunged down a vertical mineshaft
into a sunken abyss of nearly three thousand feet
far below any safe sanctuaries of emerald earth
to chisel out a dangerous catacomb of spent ore

in a savagery of drilling, blasting, and mucking
I would occasionally switch out my headlamp
to experience earth’s silent—taciturn darkness
entombed in vapors of her subterranean fetters
wading thick—I could smell and taste oblivion
I drank in inks of loneliness to my brittle body

yet in that intolerable emptiness of pure isolation
engulfed in a hollow phantasm of haunting stone
lamenting sopping fangs of a billion bitter years
I would often sense another fracture of light
emanating pure from lost silver fissures of fear
piercing me in deeper shafts of love and grace

disowned by time—sunken in pits of desolation
I discovered an unearthed earthling of myself
in twisting veins of painted strangulating stone
trapped in a deep outer space of my inner space
a newer divine reality befell untarnished hopes
as I mined in gentler and precious metals of life