POEM OF THE WEEK: Tunneling

Tunneling 3

TUNNELING
by Christine Hemp

I have found my way down.
Feverish, muddled, I dig
deep through loam and stone.
I jam my bleeding fingers
behind stuck rocks,
my nose dirty, the darkness close.

Burrowing deeper I feel
the earth breathing, her flesh
old pebbles, algae, rotted trunk.
Inside her I can breathe.
Rise and fall, rise and fall.
Even the hands of moles move with her.

Secret springs pulse
to the beat of blood and lung.
I press against the damp cool dark,
far from glare and sounds
of feet and talk.

My eyes grow larger now, burning
wide as miners’ lamps. From every
crack and cleft a tiny rivulet
of sand spills in my path.
It’s deeper

down from here on in: to find
that hidden root, a living course,
the buried seam that joins all things.

IMAGE: photograph by Christine Hemp

About Christine Hemp

Poet and writer Christine Hemp has aired her poems and essays on NPR’s Morning Edition; she has sent a poem of hers into space on a NASA mission to monitor the birth of stars; and her essays have appeared in such publications as the Iowa Review, Yale Anglers Journal, and the Boston Globe. Her awards include Harvard Extension School’s Conway Award for Teaching Writing, a Washington State Artist Trust Fellowship for Literature, and an Iowa Review Award. Her poetry collection, That Fall, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2011. Hemp teaches at the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival.
Poems and Ponderings

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