> Hello Arthur,
I´ve seen the word `haibun´ a few times recently on this list, which I never had before. I understand that this piece uses that form. I´m not sure exactly what the requirements of the form are so can´t comment on that aspect at all. The use of language to describe the various sensations of pot-holing is excellent, very vivid and immediate and contrasts very effectively with the feeling of release and freedom in the final haiku. The pot-holer emerges, the owl flies, very nice and it rounds off a complete and resonant experience.
Best wishes, Mike
> Lähettäjä: Arthur Seeley <[log in to unmask]>
> Päiväys: 2004/01/17 la PM 05:20:53 GMT+02:00
> Vastaanottaja: [log in to unmask]
> Aihe: New Sub: The speleologist
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> The Speleologist.
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> Once well inside, beyond the first drop, where I spun like a spider on a twisting rope over a welter of spray that twinkled down into the emptiness below, the entrance and the day are long lost. I turn off my light and let the darkness tighten over my face; taste the acids of terror, harsh in my throat.
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> Boots chime on rock.
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> Purity of the absolute.
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> Echoes peal and crowd.
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> My senses reach out into the cave; hear the stream in the blackness, the beast-lick of waters lap and twist past; cold, hard aching cold, shaping the cave around me. Here it is tomb-dark, my hand before my face and wide blind eyes, feels the unseen rock. Soft life that once teemed in ancient oceans and turned to the light, changed now and locked there, hard. Water through dark ways dissolves and re-lays, renews ripples of pale limestone.
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> The huge mass of the fells pins me, treads me underfoot, as I slither like a lizard through the thin mud; taste the grit and ooze of earth on my lips; crunch coarse sand in my teeth. A pitch that will not go, a way that pinches off, narrows in womb-tight, holds me by the hips. A stone rose blooms under my searching fingers; blood on my knuckles a warm salt suck.
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> Cold, wet and the hardness press upon me as I lay and know the pulse of the cave's heart where time and water transpose, unravel and fold newness in. The bowels of the earth drain and replenish.
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> I turn from the depths towards the light and the air somewhere above moving over green dales, fresh and bright with spring flowers under a wide sky.
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> The slow day closes
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> in moist greyness and warm winds
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> an owl unfolds.
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