To amuse ourselves and chase the exotic,
siblings and I wore newspaper hardhats 
for preschool excavations; we’d dig holes 
in the backyard to reach the orient, inhale
jasmine incense, sleep on bamboo mats.
Every five or ten minutes, Debbie pressed

her ear earnestly against the bottom of our pit 
and would swear she could hear pandas growling, 
macaque vocalizations, and far eastern neighbors 
laughing, singing, speaking in Chinese, Japanese, 
Vietnamese (but never in vulgar English), all foreign 
sounds that converged as, “Godspeed your journey.”

Encouraged, we tossed water into the endless chasm, 
burrowed ever deeper, scooped mud with diminutive palms,
expected to pass Jules Verne’s hero, Professor Lidenbrock, 
lost amid volcanic tubes at the center of the earth;
we rose at dawn, wrapped snacks in wax paper,
ate occasional meals, and dug ‘til dusk during summer;

wholeheartedly, we gouged out our subterranean cavern
listened for the sliding pitch of plucked zithers, invited 
friends to join our underground quest; ah! but they laughed
at our quarrying, went home to manufactured toys that
bored even their limited imaginations, while my brothers 
sisters and I resumed mining for clandestine discoveries.
                        

(Or the Ghost of Global Warming)
  
Nature strikes swiftly at even 
the doomsday respectful,
creates a Spanish Tragedy
through natural disasters:
mudslides in Boulder Creek 
mountains reveal vestiges of  
outstretched sand dollar arms 
touching marine snails, 
gastropod mollusks, & iridescent 
abalone remnants—layered, 
pressed, & embedded into the 
hillside ribcage when salt water 
tide pools sported sea shells 
a long time gone—before 
wildfires spread like Dante’s 
Inferno flames, leaving only 
millennium redwood trees in 
combustion’s crematory wake.

Far from actual shelter of an 
earth nurturer’s soft shoulder, 
variable winds scatter ashes, 
raindrops promise respite, yet
peripeteia’s on no horizon—
just a pandemic’s enduring threat.