Let’s go down to the caves
The caves under the ground.
So dark it is down there
There’s no light to be found.
Take lamps and flashlights
To see in the dark.
Turn on the flashlights.
Make the lamps spark.
Has anyone been here before?
Seems this is where no one’s ever come.
No trace of boot rubber or glove lint
Mars the pearly gypsum.
Don’t touch with your hands
The cave formations.
Or step careless and break them up
It’s bad for caver organizations
Made up from folks who are cavers,
3 sources of light, food and a snack.
When you run out of energy
They will bring your energy back.
Learn how to hold a compass.
Stretch a tape, write notes.
And draw pictures in a book
Of how the cave looks.
You’ll make a map soon
After 6 or 7 years surveying.
It will show where the cave goes.
It is why you are caving.
ENTER THE CAVE WITH NO END
Into the side of a sinkhole, not the obvious entrance
But the true entrance that writhes itself beneath
Gypsum ridges two hundred feet in but deep
No further than ten feet below the topsoil.
The cave swallows
our lights easily as a few years
Swallow the signs of humans having ever been here.
Nothing opens up, the passage thin between narrow walls
And then
ceiling channels wind above us
|
drapery gypsum pendants white clouds
|
drapery gypsum crystals shining almost silver
|
and a slot
canyon 40 feet below us that leads out of this room |
S.
Beleu
October 19, 2010
