We were in a labyrinth
of twisty little passages, all alike.
Each path forked in twine at a junction
and each junction's child forked from there.
Each passageway was numbered
but some numbers went down, and others up.
You couldn’t use elevation to navigate
nor the glow of worms around corners.
We were so deep, following those cave explorers
who had lost themselves so long ago.
The dripping was deafening
and sounded like words.
The dripping told us, in passage umpteenth-ever
that caves are formed like lungs—
like how trees and vines and lightning are,
and rivers and blood vessels and nerves—
that the earth is breathing, the earth is alive,
the earth is just as human as the rest of us.
It said, this cave follows the golden rule
and its passageways are numbered as such.
It said, follow the fibonacci sequence backwards
to escape. So sometimes we went up
and sometimes we plummeted through storeys
into cyanide-blue pools like Yellowstone.
And sometimes we followed streams
of little fish that spawned and grew and died in the dark.
And sometimes we waded through chin-high frozen saltwater
formed like reeds or candlesticks, filleting our waxen skin.
And sometimes it was dry, and the lichen glowed so bright
that green things grew, memories of the sun turning their bones to chlorophyll.
And in one cavern of great limestone buildings there was a crack in the roof
and we laddered mangrove vines to reach the tunnel above.
And for a time the walls were wet and glistening
growing over generations, in only just the right heat and humidity.
And as we went, the tunnels grew dustier, hotter
and we caught whiffs of lint and dryer sheets.
Until in one tunnel we encountered a man balancing stepping-stones
who told us there were drugs in the water.
And we crossed a passage full of vape smoke,
and we saw the offending e-cigarettes in the pools and celebrated.
And in the next passage there were stairs cut into dying stone
and there were no lichen nor fish nor bugs.
And there were crushed beer cans
and water-dead stalactites and greasy handprints along the walls.
And there were buzzing cable-lights and discarded brown paper lunchbags
stencilled with names of children in neat adult Sharpie print.
And the walls were grey and pastel, bleached dry from the heat
of two hundred thirty five electric suns.
And we turned around
and followed the fibonacci sequence back down.
We left, because only in leaving could we see
why the cave divers never returned.