Five Cave Poems from Heather Cadenhead

Commissioned Poems from the Rabbit Room Poetry Substack

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We often invite our readers to step into the role of patron by using the money from paid subscriptions to this newsletter to commission new works of poetry from writers in the Rabbit Room community. Today, our commissioned poet is Heather Cadenhead. Catch up on the archive of commissioned poems here.

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by Heather Cadenhead

Since last year, I’ve been working on a poetry collection about finding light in dark places. As the mother of a non-speaking autistic boy, I’ve navigated my share of challenges within the community as well as the church. While caregiving isn’t a journey that resonates with every reader, most understand feelings of isolation. As I’ve worked on this project, I’ve lingered with images of caves, imagining underground life as a stand-in for fears of leaving my home. While aloneness is difficult, it also feels safe.

Some of this isolation is necessary as my son’s nervous system often cannot tolerate extended periods of socializing. Other times, it is self-imposed and self-protective: opening oneself up to community, after all, opens the door to pain. It is not a possibility but a certainty. And, while I know that I’m supposed to believe that community is always worth it, no matter what, my brain sometimes can’t convince my shaking body, dry throat, and clammy palms.

These are poems for other cave-dwellers: an acknowledgment of eventide, a sitting-with-you-in-the-darkness-without-trying-to-fix-it, and, most importantly, a reminder that darkness itself holds its own specific opportunity for beauty. After all, Christ Himself once rested in the belly of a cave, waiting for God the Father to undo the deathcraft worked upon His sinewed body. None were invited to observe that sacred process. Caves possess an otherworldly quality owed, at least partially, to the darkness itself. When all is said and done, there is no Anne Frank’s diary without the lonely claustrophobia of the Secret Annex. A cave is often lovelier because of the dark mysteries it contains—mysteries we cannot yet solve.

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The Pleasure of Your Company is Requested in a Dank Cave

Would you forgive me if I slept 
on slabs of night-salted stone, 
your guest-bed sheets still clean? 

Would you hate me if I washed 
my hair in gemstone pools, undoing 
plaits you carefully braided? 

Would you disown me if I dressed 
beneath stalactite ceilings, a ghost 
to every mind but God’s? 

Would you mind if I survived 
on cave mushrooms, if I canned 
the surplus while you dined alone? 

Forget all these questions. 
Would you say yes if I invited you 
to live here, where limestone 

columns rise up like corn stalks 
in August fields, foretelling 
the unending night? 

You’ll choose fluorescent light 
over ink-black mines, while I count 
sutures in the stone like stars.