If the Cave Told the Story
A place fell away
and from that space I rose
I had always been there but was freed
I became a place of shelter
an animal could come in
I became an inside
Humans dragged in fire
brought me burnable things then
burned them up
Tree pieces
burned
plant pieces
burned
bodies of animals
burned
I would become heat for them
And hold them dry or cool
if that is what they asked with their bodies
From here I can see flowers
snow
The gift I have been given
is this spilling water
from it I learn of the far perimeter
what it holds
I press back
Of all the imagined speakers I've seen, this is my first cave, and I like the way you define it as an emptiness--as a speaker or persona, it's almost paradoxical--and kind of haunting, for me at least. I hear big questions knocking at the door here. What is real? If emptiness is nothing, how can it speak? Yet it exists, so why not speak, especially when it's witnessed so much? Would you say the poem is kind of Zen?
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