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A dense black,
viscous enough to abdicate forward shuffles
gives a screen,
a solid barrier
more stopping and secure
than a bank vault door.
Arm waving cuts no progress;
Head turning opens no new vistas
nor provides a way on.
Passage walls are neither here nor there.
Any contact is touted through the feet
as all senses tumble down.
The
head light is switched on.
A
probe strikes off in the direction of the nose.
It quivers through the dampen air
and briefly falls over hard taut edges
to slide past crannied hollows.
The horizon is tilted in many directions
when steps are recommenced.
Depth of field, focus and angle change
in the light of light.
Out
of the peripheral graded grey vision,
away from the conically fading scene
there is no difference between
shadows, walls, deep air
and black substance.
(Photo P.Eagan) |
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I
was breathless,
breath less
but still pulling in tight air.
In
a vertical dozen metres
I was beginning to overheat.
My hands followed the single rope,
my feet gripped the coiled rope down.
The light beam swung from ledge
to edge glazing the riven rock shaft.
The
shoosh on the steady strand,
The slick of the cams,
the clank of the hardware
beat a feint rhythm slower
than the pulse of my heart.
Breath less, less and less
as speed fell off the bouncing rope.
Fretting
down and sweating up
my beat shortened to the pace
of frogging knees and upraised arms.
looser air fed into my steaming lungs
to ride me mechanically higher.
After twenty off-beat metres
I travelled at a brow wet rate,
a smooth running temperature.
Less breath less.
Shunt
the arms, bend the knees,
slip the rope, pant a metre up on metre.
Nearing
the top I took a considered stop
to bring mind and gasp together.
The
getting off frayed my reason
as equipment was swopped from rope
to looping traverse rope.
I
stepped onto the smooth river bed
and safely unclipped.
I was again breathless,
less with exertion, more with exultation.
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A
voice as deep as a shout in a cave.
(line from ‘The Shipping News’ by E. Annie Proulx)
Ellis
I take with
me too many dissident voices
all smuggled into the contraband interior of a tackle
bag.
In this bag, clearly sighted when first pushed in
is a rope, not too long, hopefully not too short;
three carabineers and a tape sling
There is a Sigg bottle filled with water;
a small battery powered headlight;
a packet of dried fruit and nuts.
I can feel its security weight and see the lumpy blue
surface.
I reach down and swipe my arm through the webbing loop
and loft the bag onto my back.
The left arm cranks into the other strap.
It sites centrally, gradually easing to the shape of
my stooping curve.
As I lope
into the stream passage
a trembling voice eases out of the lip of the bag and
settles on my left shoulder.
It speaks with fearful questions taken from my love’s
sharp insecurity.
Throughout the darkness I hear the stab of quaking words.
A whisper into my cold right ear
counts numbers steeped in the jargon of markets.
I put these echoing moneyed digits aside to
leave them in a vaulted crack in the folding wedge floor.
As I move further into the wilderness
a third bass tone drips from the bag’s bottom vent holes.
From the
tackle bag I take out the rope, tie a knot, snap the
carabineer
and handline down a near vertical jagged slope.
The rope is long enough.
Returned on my back is the bag with headlight, two carabineers,
sling, water bottle, dried fruit and nuts.
I
stop to rest, take off the bag and delve in.
I drink some water, eat all the fruit and nuts.
The sling is draped over a high chert nodule awaiting
its use as lifting aid.
A draughting tenor wraps around my safeguarded head
and overlaps the leftward leaning remorseful volume.
The moistening air of three million melodic years
seeps a barren tune into the nearly empty blue bag.
The river weaves the notes into the scars of the layered
rock.
The bag is reslung onto my back.
I pull up on the sling, the chert nodule breaks off.
I stay here for seamless time and join the chorus
with my voice as deep as a shout in a cave.
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(Photo
P.Eagan)
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Ladder
free
Ellis
In
a tight squat, closed by wet walls
somewhere in an orderly queue
waited a cooling caver.
The
head of the ladder, clipped onto a berthing spreader,
hanging on a rock-bound bolt,
occasionally silvered in a glancing beam.
The lifeline, an Italian hitch turned through
a caribiner slipped away.
The rigid rungs of the ladder clattered
on the shaft’s cutting ledges.
It was a sound of sporadic movement
in opposition to the steady descent.
Bodies
in the queue eased their cramps,
flexed their anticipation,
fretted on their future suspension.
An air distant, ‘Ladder free’
hustled a redisposition of bodies
from one slight space
to another with far less comfort.
The cooling caver, crouched near to blood heat
took the lifeline,
held the other’s life in that line,
felt him step down the swaying rungs;
rehearsed his own forthcoming
progress to the washed floor
thirty metres down.
‘Ladder
free’.
The
cold caver faced the lifeline,
searched darkly for the first rung,
secured his foot,
gripped the higher rungs
and descended with a warming motion.
In
a final hot cloud of gravity’s vapour
he shouted, ‘Ladder free’. |
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First
person singular.
I tell you
something.
I have been where no one,
no one ever,
ever has been before.
I have touched
moist cockled surfaces;
explored old fossil passages;
flashed coruscating calcite;
followed chundering rivers.
Truly, soberly,
I have first footed discovered areas.
I have measured
them, described them, painted them,
sculpted them, recorded them on film,
these black holes in deeply sprawling
blanks of faulted rock.
I have been where no one,
no one ever,
Ever has been before.
A spread
of many linear kilometres
is waiting for my delving light.
I know the sites of possible entrances
open to my stomping glance.
I have heard of the gushing resurgences.
Where there is no opening I will shift the boulders
and snuggle into an enticing hole.
I
will go where no one,
no one ever,
ever,
has been before.
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Lead
me in.
a lyric
Ellis
Lead me in,
feed me in
to the shapes of shining darkness.
I left a love in a brilliant
sky,
went away with a scrambled sigh.
I took to the dark, to the passage slope.
I followed a wall with a scathing light,
followed it tall with a pensive hope.
I walked the chambers of voids and echoes,
forgot her voice of hedges and hollows.
I waded the streams of back-lit passion,
rounded the bends with a contagious fashion.
In rock-locked spume, in white washed water
I submerge her words of sun-red slaughter.
Deeper and further, denser and colder,
I went away, dipping my shoulder.
Lead me in,
feed me in
to the shapes of shining darkness.
I left a life of blue horizon,
dropped down a shaft of deep contention.
I swam a canal, stroking the roof,
stoking the air, drowning the proof.
I let her go beyond my depths,
let her live on collaged breaths.
Her features faded in the misty dark
as I climbed with a leer and a dismissive lark.
Deeper and denser, colder and further
I went away, dipping my shoulder.
Through the stacked boulders
of cracked flat spaces
I crawled to tugs of remembered places.
Scenes of love and visions of lust
go behind in a sweated gust.
In a small dark, in a tight tunnel
I wedge myself in my histories funnel.
I stay without love, shiver alone,
feeling the rock, hearing its drone.
Lead me in,
feed me in
to the shapes of leaking darkness.
To the gapes of leaking
darkness.
To the drapes of blackened
darkness.
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(Photo
P.Eagan)
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When
I got up this morning
I had every intention of going caving.
Then I had a cup of tea.
I walked over to my gear.
I walked away from the smell.
Another cup of tea.
A pot of porridge with honeyed redemption
hung heavy with procrastination.
Did my lights work?
Oh dear yes.
Was everything there?
Oh dear yes.
After doing my pre-trip pre-checks
I had another cup of tea.
The porridge resettled its destination.
I went off to the cave with every intention.
On the walk across the lush loamed fields
Alternate intentions were scented everywhere.
I stayed committed to my route.
Soon I stood at the cool, luring
whispering wind entrance.
I still have every intention.
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