Cave Poetry

[GroundquestMSA]

I like poetry a lot, but I have some trouble finding quality cave poetry. I thought I would post a couple of decent poems I found and invite folks to post their own, or to to direct us to good sources. I hear that Ronal Kerbo wrote, but I don't know where to find his work.

These authors are from Ohio, incidentally, one a caver and one not. It's easy to tell which is which.

Bat Cave - Eleanor Wilner

The cave looked much like any other
from a little distance but
as we approached, came almost
to its mouth, we saw its walls within
that slanted up into a dome
were beating like a wild black lung—
it was plastered and hung with
the pulsing bodies of bats, the organ
music of the body’s deep
interior, alive, the sacred cave
with its ten thousand gleaming eyes
near the clustered rocks
where the sea beat with the leather
wings of its own dark waves.


Below the bat-hung, throbbing walls,
an altar stood, glittering with guano,
a stucco sculpture like a Gaudi
church, berserk
Baroque, stone translated into
flux—murk and mud and the floral
extravagance of wet sand dripped
from a giant hand, giving back
blessing, excrement—return
for the first fruits offered to the gods.


We stayed outside, superior
with fear, like tourists
peering through a door, whose hanging
beads rattle in the air from
one who disappeared into the dim
interior; we thought of the caves
of Marabar, of a writer who entered
and never quite emerged—
the caves’ echoing black
emptiness a tunnel in the English
soul where he is wandering still. So
the bat cave on the Bali coast, not far
from Denpasar, holds us off, and beckons ...


Standing there now, at the mouth
of the cave—this time we enter, feel
inside the flutter of those
many hearts, the radiant heat of pumping
veins, the stretch of wing on bone
like a benediction, and the familiar
faces of this many-headed god,
benevolent as night is
to the weary—the way at dark
the cave releases them all,
how they must lift like the foam
on a wave breaking, how many
they are as they enter
the starlit air, and scatter
in wild wide arcs
in search of fruit, the sweet bites
of mosquito ...


while the great domes of our
own kind slide open, the eye
that watches, tracks the skies,
and the huge doors roll slowly back
on the hangars, the planes
push out their noses of steel,
their wings a bright alloy
of aluminum and death, they roar
down the runways, tear into
the night, their heavy bodies fueled
from sucking at the hidden
veins of earth; they leave a trail of fire
behind them as they scar
the air, filling the dreams
of children, sleeping—anywhere,
Chicago, Baghdad—with blood,
as the bombs drop, as the world
splits open, as the mothers
reach for their own
in the night of the falling
sky, madness in
method, nature gone
into reverse ...


here, nearly unperturbed,
the bats from the sacred cave
fill the night with their calls,
high-pitched, tuned to the solid world
as eyes to the spectrum of light, gnats
to the glow of a lamp—the bats
circle, the clouds wheel,
the earth turns
pulling the dome of stars
among the spinning trees, blurring
the sweet globes of fruit, shaped
exactly to desire—dizzy, we swing
back to the cave on our stiff dark
wings, the sweet juice of papaya
drying on our jaws, home
to the cave, to attach ourselves
back to the pulsing dome, until,
hanging there, sated and sleepy,
we can see what was once our world
upside down as it is
and wonder whose altars
those are, white,
encrusted with shit.
------

Mattimore in the Dolomite Gorges - Warren Luther

Above a din of rockbound waters
I said to him,
My breath is,
tinged with frost,
the sun
has set behind these
crazed hills-

But whither into this November dusk
shall we wander now?

(the fermenting herbage
is a scent made pungent
by keen cold air)

Through it he stepped
cursing
(Whither indeed!)
Indeed!
And he said,

He said-

UP YOURS!!


This poem describes a cold, wet, unsuccessful attempt to find a little S. Ohio cave.

[mgmills]

If you can locate some of the older SpleoDigests I remember some of them had poems in them. Birmingham (AL) Grotto Newsletter used to frequently have original poems in them. All my old caving publications aren't easily accessible right now or I would try to locate a couple for this thread.

[Crockett]

A little ditty about the longest cave in Tennessee with topical references for those who know the cave.

Twenty Years On

Twenty years on we came
To the big cave with the little name
Seeking our piece of caving fame
Near the place where the water brings
Blue Spring

Always known as a little hole
On the shoulder of Coal Bank Road
The best of cavers made start here
But one name rings forever clear
Bill Walter

Under that rock
Has it all
A place to sit and a place to wallow
A place to throw up down the wall
Quarter Mile Crawl

Rooms the size of concert halls
Borehole with endless walls
A great spot for a small luncheon
But able to host the largest function
Mega Junction

Ropes and beards and piles of guff
Never have you seen such stuff
Until you say "I've had enough."
And gawked until you're numb and dumb
Gypsum

Like dark angel choirs bringing
Echoed chants and voices seeming
Down the pass forever ringing
Beyond the First and Second singing
River Crossings

Push on past and fearless tread
Faded points of memory and head
Led by carbide and hearts fire
Where darkness reigns and Cavers tire
Crashing Spire

Twenty years on we came
To the great big cave with the little bitty name
Seeking our piece of caving fame
Near the place where the water brings
Blue Spring

[daj]

Are you familiar with the Mammoth Cave poems in Horace Martin's 1851 book, Pictorial guide to the Mammoth Cave, Kentucky? Would these be something you would be interested in? Below is the link to the book. The poems start on page 81. I also have a couple cave postcards with poems. Here is my Mammoth Cave postcard with a poem by Duke Munford.
Horace Martin book link. http://tiny.cc/gn2suw

[driggs]

Though prose rather than poetry, Red Watson's Caving -- perhaps more appropriately named by its French title Un Philosophe Sous La Terre, "A Philosopher Underground" -- has no fear about waxing poetic on the life of a caver.

In caving, you pit yourself against the difficulties of the cave, not against other human beings.

It is not a blood sport, not a combative sport, not event a competitive sport.

You test your skills, strength, and endurance traversing the cave, stretching your body up and down the contours of vertical cracks, squeezing through tight tubes, pushing gently through nearly water-filled passages with just enough nose room along the ceiling to breathe.

Narrow, dark, cold, wet, muddy, isolated, alone, deep below the surface of the earth in the hard, unforgiving rock.

What I remember is the smooth white limestone, cold, elegant and dank smelling, and total blackness around the edges of carbide lamp light.

I spent hundreds of dayless nights free-roaming those halls, tunnels, and tubes -- I Was The Meat In A Sandwich of Stone.

Lunch.
Legs outstretched on the floor, bent back against the wall of the elliptical passage.
You change your carbide, joke with friends, take a nap.
"All right!"
"Let's go!"
On down the passage, exploring the cave.
A timeless world.
All clues of day and night are gone.

[hewhocaves]

Any discussion of cave poetry would be incomplete without Coleridge's immortal Kubla Khan; a work which has given the title to not one but two excellent caving books in its first few lines:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

Later in the poem, the author describes both the spring which forms the river Alph as well as it sinking underground

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:

And later there is this:

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

The poem is quite deep (pun intended) and complex. But well worth dwelling over.

Kubla Khan

[Larry E. Matthews]

One of my all-time favorites was "The Fairy Caverns" by Robert Paine Hudson. Written in 1880 while he was staying at Cardwell Mountain............the present location of Cumberland Caverns. I have found Hudson's name and the date 1880 in two places inside Cumberland Caverns.

It is a very long poem, so I can't reproduce it all here, but it is Appendix E of my "Cumberland Caverns" book. Here is the begining:



THE FAIRY CAVERNS

I always loved a dark, deep cave,
A sated sense it always gave
Its silent chambers to explore,
Which man may ne'er have seen before.

At last I found a cave--beware!
Beneath a snow-capped peak somewhere,
A peak that forms a might dome,
You'd think it was some giant's home;
A narrow way once led me through
To chambers you may never view...

They told me of this narrow way
That wandered in from light of day,
Of chambers, pitfalls, goblins there,
Of wonders waiting everywhere.
With silent awe I heard the tale:
I then resided in the vale
This monarch Mountain overlooks;
I threw aside my pen and books,
And said, "No longer I'll forego
The things I so much wish to know."

That day I searched throuhout the vale
For guides, but all of no avail;
I could not stop and pine, oh no!
I could not miss so great a show.
what then? Could one alone explore
A cave of thousand rooms or more?
I seized a lamp, the cave I sought;
'Twas twilight as I hurried on,
Reaching the door as day was done;
I stooped and passed the narrow way,
The lamp shot forth its burning ray.

On, on I pressed and reached a room,
My light dispelling all the gloom;
How strange beneath the taper's glare
A palace stood! 'twas Nature's own;
There stood two statues snowy white,
One on the left, one on the right;
Great pictures on the wall I spied,
But things looked strange on every side.
I entered walking on the sands,
The statues laughed and clapped their hands;
What can this mean? I turned to fly,
'Twas but a twinkling of the eye.
'Tis all a fancy, I'll pursue
The road that leads this caverns through.

I walked along and soon the room
Behind me lay in silent gloom,
Another rose upon my sight,
Whose darkness fell before my light,
The shadows bowed and bade me come,
I walked along as if at home;
A fountain spouted from the floor,
And tumbled back with ceaseless roar;
I listened to its voice awhile,
It seemed to speak, it seemed to smile;
I thought I heard its mumbling say,
"We welcome you this very day."
I took a cup and caught a wave
Which on the margin loved to lave,
Then, lifting to my lips, I drank--
Such water never filled a tank;
I reached the pool and dipped some more,
And drank more deeply than before.


And that's only the BEGINING of the poem !!! It's really long. Check it out.

Larry E. Matthews
NSS #6792-F

[Marlatt]

By far my favorite cave poem is "In Praise of Limestone" by W.H. Auden: http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/wh ... mestone-3/

"...when I try to imagine a faultless love
Or the life to come, what I hear is the murmur
Of underground streams, what I see is a limestone landscape. "

A close second might be "The Caver's Paradox" by the late Bruce Unger (see http://www.sandcave.blogspot.com/)

swm

[GroundquestMSA]

By far my favorite cave poem is "In Praise of Limestone" by W.H. Auden

Very nice. My favorite bit:

That is why, I suppose,
The best and worst never stayed here long but sought
Immoderate soils where the beauty was not so external,
The light less public and the meaning of life
Something more than a mad camp. `Come!' cried the granite wastes,
`How evasive is your humour, how accidental
Your kindest kiss, how permanent is death.' (Saints-to-be
Slipped away sighing.) `Come!' purred the clays and gravels,
`On our plains there is room for armies to drill; rivers
Wait to be tamed and slaves to construct you a tomb
In the grand manner: soft as the earth is mankind and both
Need to be altered.' (Intendant Caesars rose and
Left, slamming the door.) But the really reckless were fetched
By an older colder voice, the oceanic whisper:
`I am the solitude that asks and promises nothing;
That is how I shall set you free. There is no love;
There are only the various envies, all of them sad.'

[GroundquestMSA]

A close second might be "The Caver's Paradox" by the late Bruce Unger

The value of this one seems to be in the message more than the artistry. The point is certainly well-made.

I read the other stuff on the same blog, and was amused to see Psalm 142, of David, when he was in the cave. Interestingly, the song has nothing to do with the cave, and I assume that the superscription was only added to put the words into proper historical context. I have looked for other references to caves in scripture. The most interesting so far is found at Job 28. There are allusions to mining at the beginning of the chapter, and that's probably what it's all about, but many of the references could refer to caves. Depending on what translation you're looking at, different phrases stick out more vividly. I mixed wording from four translations to make this hybrid version of Job 28:2-11

Man puts an end to the darkness
He searches the farthest recesses
Of stone in the gloom and deep shadow

The flood breaks out
In places forgotten by the foot of man
Some of mortal men have swung down

As for the Earth
Out of it food goes forth
But underneath
It has been upturned as if by fire

The stones of it are the place of sapphires
And it hath dust of gold

There is a path which no bird knows
Neither has the falcon's eye seen it

The majestic wild beasts
Have not trodden it down
And no lion prowls there

He puts forth his hand
Upon the flinty rock
And lays bare the roots of the mountains

He tunnels through the rock
And all its precious things
His eye has seen

He searches the sources of the rivers
And brings hidden things to light

[wyandottecaver]

I have a few I have posted in various threads before. I will qualify them by saying I am a redneck poet and if it doesn't ryme it doesn't count :)

Dark Pioneers

To be the first to trod new lands where no man has trod before
You must travel where no light shines in realms of darkened lore
You can rocket to the rocks in space or dive to the ocean floor
Today you can’t do either of these without a degree and poor

For only the most elite of NASA can ride a shuttle’s plumes
And only a lucky few are chosen to see the tube worm blooms
Millionaires can buy a rocket ride with their petroleum fumes
Spectacled scientists pay their way with years in college rooms

But a sunless kingdom waits without bright stars or salty waves
A land awaiting today’s pioneers a mysterious kingdom of caves
The gates are open to the rich gentry or even poor reckless knaves
Where a man can rest in cool splendor or toil like the Roman slaves

Underground a mountain or river can wear a poor man’s name
A single picture of subterranean wonder can win an artist’s fame
Travel the dusty trails down which no other human has came
Explore a dark rocky world where no two journeys are the same

Ride a stainless rack down the nylon highway half an inch wide
First in a thousand foot chasm because you were the first that tried
Search alone the ancient places whose location you keep secret inside
Or grimly lead a team of a hundred men to recover a friend who died

Three lights, a helmet, and good friends are really all you need
To boldly venture deep underground and stoke your pioneer creed
Not for glory not for riches or fame, a hungry family you can’t feed
To be the first somewhere that only might be there is the caver’s greed

Todd Webb

[wyandottecaver]

The Farmer’s Hole

There’s a hole in the hill I hear the farmer say
It looks like it goes down a pretty fair way
I seen where it was smokin one winter day
I was out on the tractor feedin out hay

I figgered such a mossy hole might cripple a cow
The Purdue co-op man just looked in and said wow
A cavin feller could git in if only he knew how
It’s prolly pretty big cause I threw in a dead sow

So I told my two friends an exciting exploring story
About grand rooms, fame and pig’s bones all gory
Said I needed their stout help to share all the glory
So we gathered up our caving gear for the foray

Ropes, hammers, helmets, lights, water, and a pack
We stuff, squeeze, and rearrange till it all fits on our back
Tell our buddies where we’ll be and put food in a sack
Over hill, up dale, down creek, finally we find the crack

As the sun sets we begin the cave with high hope
I wrap three pull 2 and put a biner through the rope
I ask one friend if he has my rack and he says nope
Another tells me he forgot toilet paper I guess he’ll cope

A “fair way” becomes 15 feet as the pit narrows down
Then “pretty big” becomes pretty tight as I drop underground
I hit a slope of bones and trash as I hear a gurgling sound
I spy a wet lead in the floor as my carbide light shines round

I jump aside as a friend lands beside me with a thud
His duo has gone out we fix it after finding a battery dud
He laughs as I slip on a stone and fall into the rotting crud
I grin back as I point out the only lead in the oozing mud

To find more cave I’m flat on my belly with water to my chin
Inching forward on popcorn my friends asks when the fun will begin
I’ve mud in my boots but follow the sound of a waterfall’s din
An hour later in a chert crawl a friend recounts my every sin

Suddenly the roof rises and we stagger up into a 100’ dome
A torrent falls from halfway up as the pool bubbles with foam
What a sight, my friends are drowned rats and I a muddy gnome
We contemplate the wet climb along with visions of home

A waterfall from walking passage we start up a hold in the rocks
One friend leads the water-slick route with luck and a few chocks
I wearily flop onto the ledge as my screwed upwards carbiner unlocks
Awed we peer upstream at a river weaving through car sized blocks

Refreshed by the river’s sight we feel the chill caress of roaring air
Through rimstones, rafts and pearls we lighly tread with blue feet bare
A sparkling mountain of golden flowstone we name smog’s lair
We run down the passages never checking the time cause we don’t care

We fly down ancient halls beside sparkling white walls of gypsum crust
Across grottoes of splendor never before seen ringed by totems of rust
Winding canyons and rooms unmarked save by our footprints in the dust
Still we go onward not keeping track or looking back in our scooping lust

Bishop, Jackson, and even Casteret never matched what we did an hour ago
Seduced ever onward by the gale of air we sing if it can blow then it must go
Lead after lead we pass by with miles of borehole ahead they seem too slow
As we stop beneath crystal chandeliers we realize our carbide and AA’s are low

I feel the hunger in my gut, my tired weary limbs and a chill to the bone
As we swim nude across a green pool beside amblyopsis we start to feel alone
Deep into the earth we’ve pushed through long hours and miles of stone
With no survey to follow back our voices become tinged with a worried tone

We reluctantly turn our backs on the mighty river and head back to the perilous climb
The way seems so very long without benefit of adrenaline-compressed time
Forcing my fingers to bend the rope my stainless eight seems small as a dime
Dangling and pounded by a 50’ falls will this cave become our casket of lime?

Waist deep in the foam pool we’re nearly spent with the worst ahead
At the chert tube one friend asks couldn’t you have let me die in a bed?
As we wearily enter the popcorn we only grunt with not a word said
The water no longer feels chill as my flickering carbide goes dead

Out from the sewer up the carrion slope we crawl towards our fuzzy PMI
Numbly struggling into mud caked harnesses fifteen feet never looked so high
Mossy stones and rotting bones make a fitting sight as we slowly frog by
Ten minutes turns to thirty, five feet from the lip I no longer want to try

A blazing noonday sun hangs overhead as we roll out on the forest floor
In the field below we hear the din of the NCRC as they slam a truck door
As we munch a stale dinner they ask why we didn’t call our buddies before
Hiding our fatigue we bravely reply we were thinking of caving more!

[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

LTW

[wyandottecaver]

The Blowing River

Talking caves with Gary I shook my head and gave a great sigh
All the good stuff is gone, scooped by old timers in days gone by
But the wily old caver just looked at me with a gleam in his eye
Cave pure and virgin is waiting for those able and willing to try

Where is this treasure I ask, the way to find it to me please send
Along Indian creek before the springs enter at the Bickel bend
Lies a dry rocky run leading to a cave gushing a mighty wind
But no easy task will it be, so my warnings your ears need lend

Ice guards the way against those who would try in snowy winter
Death by drowning awaits the foolish who during rains dare enter
Water deep and cold forces retreat by the unprepared all a shiver
But sitting in a rubber raft you might see the known blowing river

You might go downstream if a great drought opens the airspace too low
Beneath the sinks and farmers field towards Harrison Spring you’ll go
Upstream will reward if you open a way with the bar named for a crow
To an upper river unseen by man between canyons and pools will flow

Upstream in the walking cave began our first trip with cavers three
Stumbling and falling on rocks in known cave we went just to sightsee
While taking a rest on a sandy bar a water crawl appealed only to me
Solo past a bathtub in virgin cave never guessing it would turn a key

Ice guards the way against those who would try in snowy winter
Death by drowning awaits the foolish who during rains dare enter
Water deep and cold forces retreat by the unprepared all a shiver
But in a rubber skin you might find new passage in the blowing river

More trips we made to survey finding more virgin cave each time
The maps showing our new discoveries seemed almost like a crime
Through a rocky dig and thundering falls into mighty halls of lime
Shouting and running in the virgin river without reason or rhyme

But secrets arent free with cold and pain the cave will make you pay
Still cavers with tapes and tandems will return to continue the survey
If we ever reach the end with no more dark water to follow someday
With a gleam in our old eyes to a young caver this is what we’ll say

Ice guards the way against those who would try in snowy winter
Death by drowning awaits the foolish who during rains dare enter
Water deep and cold forces retreat by the unprepared all a shiver
But with luck you too might tread virgin bore in the blowing river

LTW

[wyandottecaver]

The Blowing River is essentially a true story set to poetry. Of course the project has progressed literally miles and miles since I wrote it in the earliest days of the renewed Blowing Hole exploration, and recently the connection of a 3rd cave into the system yeilded a bypass to the heart of the frontier.