Jeremiah's School of Levitation

Hello. It's Poetry Friday, where we group up and create about a word and post it for all to see. This week's word was "cave," which I offered up.

So, here's me doing "cave." One poem (actually, it was a song I was writing) and one tale.

If It Looks Like A Cave

She says that I remind her
of a dark and empty space.
She says that I remind her
of a cave.
She says my soul
has bottomless pits.
And that navigating me without light
can get you lost,
surrounded by greasy walls
and the sound of bat wings
and the smell of stomach gas
and old, unresolved bones.

She says that I remind her
of something hidden away.
She says that I remind her
of a cave.
She says her words
must echo in my head;
must tumble in the crags
of my hard misunderstanding
of my sudden drops
and of my cold, imperfect corners.

She says that I remind her
of a particular no-place.
She says that I remind her
of a cave.
She says that I have primitive creatures
drawn inside my skull
and that I have blind white fish
that I mistake for thoughts.
And that black bears sleep in my daytimes
and wake up in my dreams.

But, when she looks into the cave
of my eyes,
I notice her introspection.
And I wonder if
she might really be thinking
she's seeing
her own reflection.



"All the way up there?" I said. The sun was uncurling from the clouds above us and I felt the sting of sweat rising on my scalp.

"All the way up there," said Iris. "Surely you can climb a little hill."

I nodded and wiped my brow. "That's not a little hill."

We were at the bottom of a steep incline, a trail that wrapped around a hill, a hill so steep that I could have leaned against it. On one side of the trail was just the tropical foliage, obscenely green, peppered with sturdy ginger, Christmas red hibiscus, and graceful birds of paradise, all leading down to the village. On the other side of the trail was the wall of the hill, shooting nearly straight up.

"How the hell did they get that church up there?" I said.

At the top of this hill, maybe about 1000 feet from where we stood, was this small chapel, as white as sugar, glowing in the sun, glistening slightly in the fresh rainfall. We were on the island of Martinique, on our honeymoon, basking in the wet heat of the Caribbean, and in the wet heat of each other, of our possibilities, of the hot moments of anticipation and innocence that I knew were going to fade like drying sweat over the years and that I'd better eat her now like a buffet of sweet meats, spurting fruit, and golden wine before the meal ends and before I look at her one day and cry for the lost passion.

"God put it there," she said. "My mother used to say that when you see an impossible church, something so ornate and towering, with so many angles and wonders, that it looked no man could have fashioned it, or, if like this one, it's just in a place that seems like a hard place to put it, then you just have to figure that God put it there."

"He climbed this hill? I thought he was an old man."

She frowned at me, and then smiled. Years later, she would just frown.

"Mark," she said, "that's not funny."

"Why, I wonder, is God never funny to anyone," I said.

"Come on," she said. She kissed me. I felt my desire for her rise like a swell in the ocean. I wanted her right there, but she turned away fast from my reach. She started walking up the hill. I watched her butt moving underneath her khaki shorts, and I let my eyes crawl up and down her full frame, her thick, strong body. Her wrestling flesh. I remembered, two years ago, while we were dating, telling my buddy Frank that I'd met this new girl, named Iris, and that she had a strong body, cut from a slab of marble. "She makes you want to wrestle with her," I said.

"Mark!" she said, yanking me from my daydream of her.

"Coming!" I said. I adjusted my leather shoulder bag. She made me hold everything, the necklaces and two dresses we bought in the market, her two "extra" shoes, and our money. She got to hold the camera.

"I suppose if God could do it...," I said as I moved toward her.

I jogged to her side and we walked together. I reached to her hand and wrapped mine around it. She gripped me like a man's handshake.

At the first curve of the hill, I noticed the candles.

"Look at that," I said, feeling my breath coming a little harder now. I stopped and pointed to the hillside next to us.

Nestled in the hill's black rock walls was a tiny cave carved into the hillside, at about eye level, about a foot deep. And, inside that tiny cave sat a thin candle, burning, wax crying down its side.

"Whoa," said Iris. I looked at her. The sun was bringing her brown face to a glow.

"That's a lot of work to do to make a place to put a candle," I said. "Oh, I know. God did it."

She ignored me and pulled her little digital camera out of her pocket and snapped a photo. I walked over to the candle and posed. She smiled and took another photo. I bent over the candle and pretended to blow it out.

"Mark!" she said, giggling. Years later, she'd curse at me for doing that.

We kept walking. The sun had now blown the clouds to chunks of fluff.

We hadn't gone too far before we saw another little cave, and in it, another candle, burning.

"Whoa," Iris said again.

"It just rained," I said. "These candles are still lit and it just rained. Weird."

I felt a strange tingle in my lower back. I walked up to the little cave. I could hear Iris exhaling, a little irritated. But, I wasn't going to play with this candle. I wanted to see something.

I got up to the little cave and I looked into it. On its floor was a puddle of water. I put my finger in it.

"Mark! What are you doing?"

I shook my head. "It's wet in here," I said, turning to her. "Puddle wet."

I walked back to her. "Weird."

"You're scaring me," she said.

We kept walking. And we kept marvelling, because, now, nearly every ten feet, there was a cave in the hillside wall, and in each cave, there were burning candles. Some caves had several candles in them, others just had one. And, the candles ranged in size, from stout and wide, to tall and thin, like little groups of people hovered at a covered bus stop.

As we kept up the hill, our legs straining at the incline, the hillside wall lowered, until, when we reached the top, our chests heaving, my neck wet with sweat, there was no hillside, just the church, graceful and simple and white in the sunlight. We both stood straight, and, I realized it was the first time I had straightened my back since we started climbing up this hill.

We puffed air for a while before Iris walked to the church. The big, rough wooden door was shut tight, but a window was open. She peered in.

"Mark," she said. "Come look."

I ambled over and put my hand on her back. I kissed some of the salty sweat from the side of her neck. I pushed her ponytail aside and kissed her at the base of her hairline.

"Mark! We're at the church!"

"I thought God was all about love," I said.

"Mark!" She poked me.

I smiled and looked inside the church. It was quiet, warm, smelling of fresh wood and something wet. The pews were curved, ergodynamic arcs of simple beauty, made of rosewood and lined up perfectly, facing the alter, which was bathed in the light of minor key stained glass, an image of Jesus praying in the mosiac pattern of the glass.

The place was shadowy, peaceful, like a cave of worship.

"Take a photo," I said.

She was quiet for a second, and she stepped back.

"No," she said. "I think I'll just take a picture in my memory."

I put my hand on her head, pressed down, and said "Click!"

She smiled. I think a tear tried to come out of her light green eyes.

I kissed her and walked around the church. The grounds were perfectly manicured, tiny red flowers ringing the walls of the church and graceful coconut trees. The view from the lawn was spectacular. I could see the carpet of the greenblue Caribbean stretching past the jungly landscape. I could see the city below us, looking like tumbled blocks and beaver teeth rising from the green.

I looked back to the church, and I noticed something. On the ground, underneath a bush, there sat one of those fat candles, lying on its side. I went over and picked it up. I looked up. There was a window, in the steeple. I saw a jutting wooden pane. The window looked open, the inside black. The candle must have fallen. I almost called out to Iris, but, instead, I put the candle in my bag.

I walked back to Iris. She was looking into the church window again.

I watched her for a while. I was glad she was here, that she was alive. It's strange how small she seemed in that space of air we were in, so small next to that church, so small next to the backdrop of the Caribbean, so small. And yet, she was the biggest thing in my life. Huge. People are so tiny, and the earth is so giant, and yet, it's the people who are bigger. Iris was bigger than the Earth, and smaller than any of the trees that surrounded us. Amazing, I thought.

"Okay," she said to herself, turning around. She saw me and flinched. "Oh, you were right there all the time?"

"Long enough," I said.

She rolled her eyes and came to me. "Let's go," she said. "Have some beer."

"Ah yes, the bar. That's my house of worship," I said.

She locked her arm in mine and we walked down, grimmacing in the sunlight. We were silent, listening to the trees exhaling the wind.

Halfway down, I stopped her.

"Hold on," I said.

She looked at me with a squint.

I reached into my bag and pulled out the candle.

"Where'd you get that?"

"At the church," I said, as I walked toward one of the tiny caves.

"What are you going to do?"

I stayed silent as I walked to a cave, which already had three skinny candles in glass holders standing within. I tilted my candle so that its wick kissed one of the other candles. When a flame sprang alive from it, I set it down easy in next to the others.

I walked back, looking at Iris the whole time. She had a curious look on her face.

"That's for us," I said. "That's our forever candle."

"Mark," she said, her breath catching. "That's beautiful, that's so beautiful." She sniffled a bit and looked in my eyes.

"I love you," she said, and she kissed me.

She looked at the candle again and shook her head. "But," she said, "it's going to burn down, melt away," she said. "That's the sad part. Who's going to maintain it? I'm sure people come up here to put fresh candles in there all the time. What about this one?"

I thought for a second.

"Maybe God will take care of it," I said.

She frowned and hit my shoulder. "Mark."

She's frowning now, I thought, but years later, when she remembers this, she'll smile, I bet.

like the poem and the story too...

hope you are feeling better!

I so love your descriptions...the candle crying wax, the shape of Iris, the colours and the details...sigh....
Did that story really happen? It sounded like a memory, a very loving memory that one longs to re-live.

I want to hear the music to your song! Separately, and then together.

Both offerings today, beautiful!

Beautiful metaphores, my friend!