Monday February 1st, 2010

The exercise:

Welcome to February. I was considering putting an exclamation mark at the end of that welcome but I just couldn't muster the fake excitement for long enough. Maybe next year.

I've been catching up on my hideously large backlog of National Geographic issues lately and read something that inspired today's prompt: cave exploration.

And yes, for those of you keeping track, that was from the June 2009 issue.

Mine:

My sky is earth
My skin is mud
Rain clouds gave birth
To this damned flood

I splash and run
Through deepest dark
I just want sun
Or a small spark
From a headlamp
That would lead me
Out from this damp
But I can't see

My face meets rock
It's a dead end
Hell's a short walk
From here my friend

Water rises
A bit too high
No surprises
I say goodbye

2 comments:

Greg said...

That's an impressive backlog! I've just recently been given a free subscription to Nature on condition that I fill out fortnightly surveys on what I read and find interesting, so that's helping stop me build up a backlog there.

Your poem's fourth line took me completely by surprise and I kept smiling for the the rest of it. Nice one!

Cave exploration

"We wiggle through here," said St-Pierre, gesturing somewhere just beyond the light cast by our headlamps. "It can be a little bit of a tight squeeze."
Jermaine, on my left, giggled nervously. He disliked tight squeezes, and darkness, and thinking he was alone, and caves generally. Bill had already wondered out loud what Jermaine was doing on our caving expedition.
"Bill, you will go first." Jacob St-Pierre had a hint of Accadian French in his accent. "Then Michaël, myself, you," he pointed at me, "and Jermaine."
"Hey man, no!" Jermaine shivered, a whole body spasm as though he were trying to curl up and remain standing at the same time. "No way, man, I'm not going last!"
"Very well, you may go next to last."
We squeezed through a narrow bore-hole one by one, Jermaine getting more and more nervous as he listened to the others husky breathing and the scrape of toughened clothing on ancient stone. When it came his turn, he looked first at the hole, then at his briefcase he'd refused to let go of, then at me.
"Go through, I'll push the case after you."
He wanted to refuse, but he could see he couldn't carry it through.
Once his feet disappeared I picked up three small boulders and pushed them into the hole, wedging them tightly. His shouting started a few seconds later, muffled by the mass of stone he was now entombed in.
St-Pierre reappeared from a spacious tunnel, leading Bob and Michaël behind him, both of them looking puzzled.
I lifted the briefcase: "Let's find out what little Jermaine's been up to then."

Marc said...

Well I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I'd already read most of July's issue, so I'm practically all the way up to August now! (sigh)

Hah, glad I could sneak one in on you :)

And I thought something was up as soon as you mentioned the briefcase. I still didn't expect that particular something though :D