Posts Tagged ‘cave’
cave beneath the waterfall
In the cold weather, I think about the waterfalls we saw this summer. As the temperature gets lower, they succumb. First the water freezes at the edges, building up on the rocks and ledges. Then, gradually icicles build and the surface water freezes. By mid-winter, the waterfall will be a frozen cataract, a glass house of ice. Within the frozen falls are ice caverns and icicles, places where water runs and where water stands still, and places where the ice traps sunlight to shimmer and sparkle.
One of the waterfalls we visited this summer was Smith Falls (see ‘niche beneath waterfall’ under the category ‘waterways’, published October 21, 2011). At the base of the waterfall was a small cave. In winter, the entrance to this cave must be a crystalline curtain of icicles and glass.
Below, in my poem and drawing, I remember the cave and waterfall in summer.
~
shelter
‘a small cave is hidden beneath the falls’
– trail guide
~
sip of tea
candles lit in evening
a lap quilt tucked
relief from freshet
~
cave, respite
beneath two newly reconciled
slabs of bedrock
or where vulnerable sediments finally fail
succumb to the reach of water
~
spurt and shard
the brawl subsides
and damp recedes
pollen settles
~
concentric rings
and space is made
to occupy
~
© Jane Tims 2011
© Jane Tims 2011
nichepoetryandprose 