Opening

The safe ground opened,

gaping no wider than I: sink-hole!

The limestone honey-comb

swallowing an ancient pile of rock.

(It could have swallowed me as easily!)

Egg-shell skeleton underfoot

beneath the tangled blooming fields,

catacombs for wandering,

a door into the netherworld,

beckoning,

swirling mystery, oblivion...

I did the only thing to do.

I dropped a nearby pile of stones

one by one

into the hungry mouth of emptiness

till it was filled.

(No sense pit-falling some dark night.)

But in the dark within my quiet soul,

that black hole opens and opens again,

awake with revelation:

the last stone rolled away.

© Tamara Rasmussen 2018