by Thomas Davis
1
A young man with a fear of spiders on a train
Saw spiders inside, outside the dining car.
His heart began to beat; he had no breath,
Sweat poured from pours he did know he had.
The spiders, hairy, black and yellow, eyes
As big as saucers put beneath a coffee cup,
Ignored the man, but wove their silken webs
Into the air, silk flowing from the train
Into the soils, the meadows, mountains, seas.
As eons passed inside the young man’s mind,
A revelation germinated fire
Inside his head as blinding streams of light
Lit up the beads of rain drops on the web
Where rain was falling, making verdant earth.
He heard the elephants sing songs with voices
So low that only other elephants
Could hear the rumbling along deep veins of rock.
He saw, in total blackness, octopi
Illuminating barren sands with rainbow light.
He understood, at last, how small he was,
How much he throbbed inside the living earth.
Inside immenseness, fear, sweat, beating heart
Were melodies, part of the melodies
Sung softly by the planet earth to space.
2
A woman crawled into a gaping hole,
A lamp strapped on her forehead, ropes and pitons
Tied to her dull green army issued belt.
She clambered over rocks, around a fissure,
Until she found a cavern sparkling
With crystal white stalactites hanging down
From ceilings covered with the wings of bats.
She smiled and crawled until she came
Upon a pool of water clear as glass,
The stone beneath its depths a smooth, round bowl.
She bent and took a drink from waters cold
As all beginnings, as all the universe.
The water in the pool sank into earth.
The woman, startled, jumped back from the pool.
The water shimmered in the darkness, breathing
Around the smallness of her small, harsh lamp.
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