This poem was inspired by a random news article on the Bing homepage. I didn’t believe the headline so I used Google to do a quick fact check…low and behold…there is a borehole that goes down 12.2 kilometers into the earth’scrust. It’s in Russia. There are links at the bottom of the page if you want to find out more.
That got me thinking about why we’d do that, and what the implications could be. For example, there are scientists worried about the ancient bacteria and viruses etc that could reawaken when the polar ice caps and permafrost melts. What if the drilling created a new volcano?
In this poem I use the word ‘boring’ as in burrowing, digging. Tartarus is the legendary prison of the Titans (or some of them at least).
Tartarus
Boring like parasites
Into the body that feeds us.
The plan is to break the crust
Of the fragile body.
Descend down through the layers
And then we will thrust
Dark secrets into the light.
Having conquered mountains
And trodden on the moon,
It seems only fair to dig
Into our own skin.
And for what are we searching?
Monsters?
Do we think the occupants of Tartarus
Would be new to us.
Deep bore holes: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190503-the-deepest-hole-we-have-ever-dug
Climate Change creating even more threats to humanity: http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170504-there-are-diseases-hidden-in-ice-and-they-are-waking-up
About the God / Place Tartarus: https://www.greekmythology.com/Other_Gods/Tartarus/tartarus.html
Angele Toomey Poetry 