In the bowels of the earth
the only light I see
is the vision that shines
in the dark heart of me.
Dark, but not blind—
for I crawl to it now
like a goldminer trapped
when the shaft crashes down.
These bowels will digest me,
if I do not climb
to the inmost goal—
though I twist and writhe.
Though I writhe and twist
in my slow ascent,
it was not the earth’s fault,
or the seism that wrenched.
There’s no buried treasure
in the depths where I peered.
I abandoned all riches
when I was interred here.
Lee Evans lives in Bath, Maine in retirement from the Maryland State Archives and the Bath YMCA.