Gulp

By Hiram Larew

What if it turns out after all
That down is really up
Or if digging or diving deep is a powerful lifting instead?
Why is rise so special?
What if everything beneath here – rocks, water, critters, mud, life –
Is in fact the greatest heaven around?
Maybe it’s okay even fine to be upside down.
What if hope isn’t out in the stars so much as it is
In deeply plunged instead?
How would it be if the future turns out to be
Less over and more under?

But you know what’s probably even more lasting
Is the largely in between —
Such dangly lives.
Maybe there shouldn’t be a bias of any kind
For either low or high.
In fact maybe the greatest need right now is for flipping —
For those glorious notions that roll beyond
And for those gasps that gulp
When thoughts are skimming along the surface.

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