From the Depths
Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 7:49 pm
From the Depths
by Lichen Throat
Half a mile down and three miles back,
Five tiny lights in a world of black.
Glad I’m not down here all alone,
Nothing but water dripping on limestone.
Cavern after cavern to explore;
No one’s ever been this deep before.
One more climb and we’ll call it a day.
Grabbing the rope; yelling “On belay!”
Carabiner breaks and the rope goes slack--
One quick shout and she’s on her back.
She’s still alive and still plainspoken,
Looks up at us and says, “My leg’s broken.”
Oh Emily, we’re gonna get you out of this cave.
We’ll carry you up from the depths, so be brave, be brave.
Ten minutes later my heart still races.
All of us have tears on our faces.
Five minutes more and we’ve made a plan:
I’ll stay here with you and Suzanne.
Pedro and Laura have gone for help,
But we’ll never leave you by yourself.
Hours tick by, and we fight our fear;
When will anyone reappear?
Oh Emily, we’re gonna get you out of this cave.
We’ll carry you up from the depths, so be brave, be brave.
Just when we’ve decided we’ve been waiting too long,
We see a light; we hear their shouts--feel like bursting into song!
The search and rescue team is here with orange boards and oxygen,
But it’ll still be several days until you finally see the sun.
When they ask if you need anything, you smile and say “a pizza,”
And I know if you get back, the whole town’ll want to treat you.
A step at a time on the long way out,
Inching along this tortuous route.
In an hour, we go just a hundred feet,
It’s so hard not to feel downbeat.
But day after day, every one persists,
Twisting our bodies like contortionists,
Until we emerge in the warm sunlight
After a week of pitch-black night.
Oh Emily, we finally got you out of this cave.
We carried you up from the depths; you were so brave, so brave, so brave!
by Lichen Throat
Half a mile down and three miles back,
Five tiny lights in a world of black.
Glad I’m not down here all alone,
Nothing but water dripping on limestone.
Cavern after cavern to explore;
No one’s ever been this deep before.
One more climb and we’ll call it a day.
Grabbing the rope; yelling “On belay!”
Carabiner breaks and the rope goes slack--
One quick shout and she’s on her back.
She’s still alive and still plainspoken,
Looks up at us and says, “My leg’s broken.”
Oh Emily, we’re gonna get you out of this cave.
We’ll carry you up from the depths, so be brave, be brave.
Ten minutes later my heart still races.
All of us have tears on our faces.
Five minutes more and we’ve made a plan:
I’ll stay here with you and Suzanne.
Pedro and Laura have gone for help,
But we’ll never leave you by yourself.
Hours tick by, and we fight our fear;
When will anyone reappear?
Oh Emily, we’re gonna get you out of this cave.
We’ll carry you up from the depths, so be brave, be brave.
Just when we’ve decided we’ve been waiting too long,
We see a light; we hear their shouts--feel like bursting into song!
The search and rescue team is here with orange boards and oxygen,
But it’ll still be several days until you finally see the sun.
When they ask if you need anything, you smile and say “a pizza,”
And I know if you get back, the whole town’ll want to treat you.
A step at a time on the long way out,
Inching along this tortuous route.
In an hour, we go just a hundred feet,
It’s so hard not to feel downbeat.
But day after day, every one persists,
Twisting our bodies like contortionists,
Until we emerge in the warm sunlight
After a week of pitch-black night.
Oh Emily, we finally got you out of this cave.
We carried you up from the depths; you were so brave, so brave, so brave!