Night’s Geology - Edit3

[Todd]

Hi dukealien,

Some thoughts on your edit below.

I'm

Night’s Geology

Edit1

What gets you through the tunnel and the night--I appreciate that you attempted to avoid the cliche of dark tunnel. Though I'm not sure "and the night" is the right way to get there when I take your good title into consideration. I think you probably want to simply expand on the tunnel and strip the word night from line one. The focus seems more on geology as the governing metaphor and the repetition of night waters it down some for me. Not sure this is a good substitution but maybe: "What gets you through the tunnel without light"
Is much the same: there’s dread it frees you of,--The syntax ending on "of" makes this seem slightly forced for the rhyme. It's not horrible but it does draw attention to itself.
Fear of abandonment, like rocky height--The image from the simile seems to fit very well with the abstract concept you lay out. My only concern with it is that you start with a tunnel and you lead to a bit of confusion with your metaphor in the next line (in my opinion).
Above, weighs down, no breath, no light, no love.--The only issue I have here is I'm moving from acrophobia to claustrophobia. It would seem that the latter is the better choice given the tunnel image in line 1.
Hope’s not enough:  you must own confidence,
Belief in science, that this tunnel’s roof
Is like each other’s, bored through rock as dense,
That’s crushed no one – a tested, public proof.
You likewise trust the pillars of your mind -
Revealed religion, ideology -
Because they’ve helped so many souls to find--I noticed I was moving off of mild to more of a line by line. Let me scale it back to the bigger things that stand out. I wonder if the "so many souls" actually gives the individual trust or comfort in the time of stress. I don't think people tend to draw comfort from an assumed comfort given to others. Just an observation.
Safe passage through each night’s geology.--It sells your title and its a good line.
    To engineer is human; so’s belief:
    The stress of life, like stone, wants strain relief.

I think I may have overdone it a bit for this forum. I hope the comments are helpful.

Best,

Todd