WELL STONES: A Meditation on Limits, Gravity, and Moments We Look Up

All of my life
has been
inside a well,
its ring of stones
teaching me the grammar of my days.

From that dark throat
the sky was only a rumor -
a pale amnesia
faint and untrustworthy.

I lived in a cistern of the known 
and the stones above me
insisted the world was mostly granite,
water, and mud.

Then one night,
the air was still
a miracle happened:
the well’s skin
shimmered like film,
and its surface became translucent.

On that fragile pellicle
stars appeared—
pinpricks of fire
quivering in the silence.

What were those objects?
Messengers? Illusions?
Only merely desperate hopes?



Ellesha: (nodding to herself) Don’t you see? We’re all trapped in our own gravity wells. 
         We are held down by the mass of our habits and the heavy sediment of our histories. 
         We’re stare at the stars from time to time, but our feet are stuck in the mud.

Jules:   (shaking his head and rolling his eyes) God, Ellesha, your words like heavy stones. 
         Lighten up. Enjoy the small joys of life. Anyone care for a beer? My glass is 
         reaching a critical vacuum.

Andrei:  (with a slow, enigmatic smile)  A little lubrication for the gears of the soul? 
         That sounds great! Every philosophy needs some sort lubricant. Since we’re fresh 
         out of other intoxicants, a cold lager is a respectable substitute.

Soo:     (folding her arms, unimpressed) Typical. The moment something feels deep, you boys 
         look for a drink. Is the "infinite" too bright for you, or are you just afraid of 
         the silence?

Jules:   (raising an eyebrow, grinning) I’m not afraid of anything. Perhaps the "music of 
         the spheres" consists of beer bubbles?

=====================================================================================
from _Let the waters be my witness: Messages about our watery world_ by T Newfields
SUMMARY: Thoughts about confinement and how humans face the infinite.
KEYWORDS: existential poetry, expanding perceptions, confinement, gravity wells, 
          philosophical dialogues, speculative reflections

Begun: 2011 in Tokyo, Japan   / Finished: 2026 in Shizuoka, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted
by T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ]

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