You are in a hole. There is no way out.
You could try clawing up, if you want.
Perhaps you might tear some dirt loose;
perhaps your nails bleed on cold stone.
You might as well yell your voice ragged,
but you cannot tell if your cries can reach the surface,
shrouded in shadow as it is,
and few ropes could reach this far down anyways.
You would prefer to be in a box,
with no yawning reminder of an elsewhere.
You might content yourself with memories of the sun.
Idiot. What do you know of sunlight?
You are in a hole. You could try to spin stories:
what you will do once freed, what your friends must be up to.
You fail, of course. The words of freedom and friendship
have no point of reference, here in the hole.
The longer you stay here
(What is ‘long?’ You lack minutes or months.)
the less you can recall of words altogether.
Tools of communication are vestigial,
here in the hole. They wither.
Suppose that, through some miracle —
gravity reverses for your sake —
you get out. Congratulations!
You were missed, met with a chorus of
“Where have you been?”
You answer, but it all seems rather silly now.
You are surrounded by loved ones,
not alone, in a hole. The hearth crackles
with welcoming warmth; the clammy hole
now seems very far away indeed.
After a moment of adjustment to the light
you forget that darkness weighs on ineffectual eyes.
You find it difficult to speak about silence.
Let’s say, when you keel over, you go to Heaven. Well done!
Dining on ambrosia, God at your side,
you peer down through the stratosphere at your family.
What the hell are they doing down there?
Your nectar-marinated tongue recoils,
imagining their dirt-born food. Their sublimest tones
grate against your ear, attuned to angelic chorus.
The hole, up here, has slipped your mind altogether.
After a bit God likely bores of you, casts you back to Samsara
As a baby, or a bunny, or a beetle, or a bird,
you are far more concerned with your body
than with the Kingdom of The Lord Your God.
So its echo fades. But on the off chance that you become
a worm, you might writhe your way back to the hole.
Maybe this time it will be a home.
The hole itself would not improve;
you would just have worse taste.