Show Cave

132 years ago
A man claimed a cave and the land around
And he made it a show
Leading risky six hour tours
Up and down ropes and flimsy ladders

His guests held candles in their mouths
Mounted to paddles that they’d bite
So they could witness hands-free
During their descent and ascent

Concrete evidence
Of a time-scale beyond understanding
Still in motion

Growth measured in centimeters per thousand years
Growth not slave to our cycles

Total darkness
Only seen in a cave like this one
Or 1000 meters below the surface of the sea

Foreign forms and structures
A million years becoming odd and beautiful and holy

Opening up the cave to all willing to travel and pay
Left a mark

Black soot from the candles
Coats the rarest formation

The old guides did a bit
Where they would tap out tunes on resonate wings of crystal
That’s one way structures have broken
A falling ladder is another

Dust
The kind of melange of skin particles and hair bits and microfibers you wipe from the top of your fridge
Sits atop the wonders

Microns of my own cells and my children’s
Bits of our t-shirt and tennis shoes
Are the latest addition to 132 years of defilement
Beauty a million years in the making, wearing our shroud

Dark evidence on light crystal
Of our oily, dirty, insatiable, destructive human need
To rub up against infinity

In denial of its accumulative power
And in judgement
As our need is somehow more pure than the need of the ones who looked before

Shame starts its creep and spread

But then a second feeling grows
It feels like a question
And a space
A gift
A love song from the cave itself

There are no words to her song
But she asked me to make words
So here’s a try:

Welcome
The need is understood
You belong
What you leave behind belongs in the story
Don't be afraid

Feel my air
Feel my darkness
Feel my otherworldly form make what is unseen and unknown within yourself
Come alive in your own body

Take my medicine

Your need
What you take and what you leave
Will not diminished my being
Or my power to heal

I am sister of Lascaux
Marked by the life around me

Your mark is holy
And I receive it as love

Welcome
I am a show cave with no shame
My chambers are open for business

She offers a second message
A teaching for me
Maybe you? I don't know
And again I'll try to put it in words:

Inside you is a crystal cave
One million years in the making

You hide it, though you know its beauty
Because you're afraid it will be defiled
Maybe destroyed altogether

But in truth
Even with your entrance disguised
It has already been entered and touched
It has been changed and will be changed
And its beauty persists

The time has come
To open your chambers for the business of love