Caves and Towers

Out of the mouths of the cool caves of Kentucky,
a white steam winds up the ramps to the waiting visitors.
From its colorless underbelly,
the cave lays its mauve kiss on their restless foreheads.

Soon they still, even the fidgeting babes,
filing down dim stairs into the gloom.
The chill of the tomb seeps thoroughly.
Their lungs breathe more calmly.
They are soothed, they are the cave people now,
even the sweating, burly men.

After hours and hours, all darting eyes
catch the glimmer of two hundred steel steps,
a column, rising
from nowhere to nowhere.
The tower vibrates as two hundred feet pound upward.
They are met at the entrance by an angel,
rolling away the great stone,
to the greenest green you will even see,
(as the gruff guide said).

The cave fades to a primal memory,
buried, like the Abbey of Gethsemani,
behind the locked gates of temptation.
The shifting spires, the walls,
wistful in the evening mist,
the unnatural draw.
No one can enter the garden without conviction.
As the guide also said,
"Folks, this isn't Disneyland."

– ann neuser lederer

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"Caves and Towers" first appeared in Wind and Pudding Rte 62, Issue 2002