a poem for you wyandotte lovers

[wyandottecaver]

The Wyandotte River

Along a certain gravel road beside a nameless dry stream
I and two friends find a rocky hole billowing a column of steam
This virgin gap too small to enter we hope no else knows
Just a small mossy hole in the woods we wonder how far it goes

A solem pact we make that as one united group we’ll explore
No one coming back alone to cheat by scooping the big bore
First a week goes by no time off from our work or wives
Then a whole month is lost trying to match three cavers lives

But our hands and minds are not idle in our homes we sit
Squinting at lines on topos and getting our justrites lit
You do point and I’ll do tape and she can sketch and book
Miles and miles of survey we’ll log during our first look

Finally back at the steaming mossy hole we arrive three months later
With hammers, chisels, pellets and drills we create a body size crater
In the rain of a spring thunderstorm we quickly squeeze underground
Dropping from a land filled with thunder into a passage without sound

A trickling stream we follow with our bellies in the dirt
In a rush to reach big cave our words are short and curt
On and on it goes as a belly crawl in a wet rocky stream
Until the sound of water ahead revives our borehole dream

We decide that we’ll just scout ahead and do the survey later
Better to know what’s up ahead to save precious time and paper
Into a 10’ high room we emerge a chance to finally stand
Water pooled in rimstone dams with cave pearls in the sand

Larger our trickling stream grows the ceiling now 15 feet high
Plunging through knee deep pools we forget about staying dry
Over another rimstone dam a hundred we’ve left behind
The water ever deeper grows bigger passage we hope to find

At the top of a waterfall pit we’re stuck without a rope
Then we spot a dry lead in the wall that revives our hope
No holds on the water worn wall we make a pile of rocks
Into a five foot backbreaker with river gravel in our socks

Stooped like trolls we continue on each ignoring their aching back
Until we emerge below a mighty dome the far wall split by a crack
Taking a break we sit in the spray that’s completed an 80 foot fall
Finally we rise and continue on squeezing our bodies into the far wall
Grunting through a narrow popcorn canyon below gypsum flowers
Pushing ever farther going ever deeper knowing the return will take hours
Squeezing up through dusty breakdown blocks with a breeze in our face
Suddenly into borehole we pop our spirits fly as down wide halls we race

Our sight dimmed by low LEDs we miss the unlit lights along the side
Into a metal gate we run rudely barred from the dark starry night outside
We decide to rest until morning until then our story we decide to save
We wonder if George Jackson made this same trip inside Wyandotte Cave

[killian]

Loved the poem... Is it a true story of yours??