Into the Cave
Have you ever had the mystical pleasure of entering a real cave? I remember when my grandmother took me to Howe Caverns. We went down, down, down together with the guide and the other cave-goers, in a cast iron elevator—so you could see the earth all through the descent. The chalky air and the tight space was as disconcerting as it was fascinating. The boat ride was my favorite part.
That was years before the Howe Caverns people thought up “yoga, zumba, and pilates in the caves.” (I’ll pass.) And years before you could get tickets to both the caves and The Lion King in one fell marketing swoop.
To go into a cave as the first explorer or to go in as a tourist (or a zumba participant) always takes, I believe, some kind of courage and curiosity. After all, we are leaving the open sky for the inner earth.
So I invite you to bring both—your courage and your curiosity—as we travel into the cave with poetry.
Try It: Into the Cave Poetry Prompt
Whether you’ve been to a real cave or a metaphoric one, we invite you to write about it in a poem. Maybe your poem itself can even serve as a kind of cave! What sights, sounds, smells, textures, tastes can you put in your poem to make it richer? We look forward to reading.
Photo by Joshua Sortino, Creative Commons, via Unsplash.
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L.L. Barkat says
I remembered I have a cave poem! 🙂 Here, for anyone who is looking for caves…
The Find
To me it is just
a cave—a bouldered space
held dark against this mountain.
To you, it opens
dreams of dragons, pink and green
as the dragon-scale shoes
I bought for you just yesterday,
knowing it would be too soon before
you came upon this place, only to find it had become
just a cave, an empty bouldered space.
Bethany says
Aww…I feel this as a parent!
Lovely poem.
L.L. Barkat says
Thank you, Bethany.
I seem to write these kinds of poems mostly about my youngest. Maybe there’s something to that. (Either in her, or me. 🙂 )
What ages are yours at this point?
Bethany says
That is sweet about the poems for your youngest. <3
This year, I will officially have both in high school. They're as shocked as I am. I think it's safe to say the pandemic era shifted our sense of time-gone-by.
L.L. Barkat says
Oh, wow. Oh! A little poem for you…
***
And so the mother
goes into the cave
of memory
When did they
emerge like this—
so grown,
ready (and not)
to meet the
world?
Bethany says
Aww… LL! I LOVE THAT. And yes, when? “The cave/ of memory” is such a perfect pairing. Thank you very much for writing and sharing this! <3
I've been working on, or playing with, rather, some cave material too. A little fun with art and words. Great prompt, by the way!
Sandra Fox Murphy says
A great prompt! In 2019, before the great Pandemic, I was writing a novel where a “white Indian” was a minor character. “White Indians” are the children or young adults, often German immigrants, captured by native tribes in the early battles between pioneers and native Americans … when returned to their families years later, these people were often unable to acclimate, and there was one man recorded to have gone off from his family to live in a cave. Thus, this poem was inspired by my research.
To Live in a Cave
Oh, the thought of it!
Coolness in summer days
beneath tallgrass bent in breezes,
not far from the river—
the sculptor of caves,
carved rooms damp
in limestone, quartz,
sandstone lining the quest
for corridors and exodus.
After the leaves fall,
the chill of winter oozes
into where I’m shrouded
beneath roots of trees,
warmth held in a cocoon
bound tight, water
dripped into my cup.
Oh, to live in a cave
where I’d unfurl
frayed quilts
onto mossy stone
‘neath a skylight,
a roof of stars
framed in vines,
stack books near a wall.
A place where my skin
wanes pale to a glow,
where I’m squirreled
beneath that other world.
L.L. Barkat says
Wonderful poem, Sandra!
I especially love the roof of stars, the mossy stone and “squirreled/beneath that other world.”
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Thank you. Perhaps one day I’ll go up and visit that historical site near Mason, Texas.