Enter the vast passage stretching underground
the bustling chatter
whose formation dates back millennia
“It’s just beautiful,”
the network of utterances fellow spelunkers find.
“The words are layers of fudge;
treacle, dark, ochre, obscure.”
Researchers had long poked around known,
alleys, suspecting more to it.
Discovered the meaning lies below.
drilled into sub-text to access the passage
dowse, locate equivalence,
detect anomalies of speech,
signifying a communicant or void beyond.
Now all left was the gruelling task of
piercing ancient idioms of parole
drill and chisel a window through.
They got lucky when softer vowels gave way,
“There was indeed a glottis
wider than we thought,”
They found
this subterranean chamber steeped in words.
“The sense is immutable.”
Massive thoughts ruptured the bedrock,
yellow calcite encrusted the words
plosives popping bright colour.
They crawled and waded through.
“The words are perfectly smooth, perfectly vertical”
The course ran until their travels were stymied by incomprehension.
“It keeps going, we have no idea where it will end”
The hope is to return when the noise recedes.
determine exact depth and extent,
and one day open up the aperture
“It’s a great discovery, we’re very happy about that.
This doesn’t happen very often in a lifetime.”
.
Patrick Williamson
Picture Rupert Loydell
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