Written for: dVerse Poets Pub – Poetics: Your Majesty (posted by Gospel Isosceles)
“Welcome to the pub, poets! Tonight we are going to explore the majestic, and since I can’t in all honesty give the title of “majestic” (without succumbing to cheapened marketing ploys) to any other drink besides plain and glorious water, we’ll start with a round of that and see where it takes us.
Majestic – having or showing impressive beauty or scale, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, was actually first used in adjective form by William Shakespeare. “This is a most majestic vision” – spoken by Ferdinand in The Tempest. The word derived from ‘majesty’, from the Latin maiestas, meaning greatness.
Write a poem in whichever form you see fit to do justice to your version of “majestic.” On the surface you might be tempted to go toward royalty or lofty mountains or supernovae in outer space, which is fine if your poetry takes you there. But meditate for a moment longer on “impressive beauty or scale,” or simply on “greatness,” and see if you can get to the essence of the word and make us all gasp.”
Only my age at the time
of the visit allowed me
to see this magnificent
place. My claustrophobia
has grown with age.
I remember the underground–
lowly lit, six million
years old. In Howe Caverns,
I learned the terms, stalactites
and stalagmites. Squeezed
through limestone corridors,
galleries, and under boulders
until we came to a subterranean
riverbed. Deep inside the cavern,
solid rocks appeared fluid.
Encountered mysterious grottos
dripping with stalactites,
as we followed twists
and turns that led to
a glassy surface of
an underground lake. Truly,
a majestic place.
Interesting that we usually think of majestic as rising into the air but you found it underground!
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Never thought of it that way, but you’re right.
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Sounds amazing! And that photo looks amazing, too. I want to see this place!
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You should. It is located in Upstate NY, I believe.
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My sense of claustrophobia usually keeps me out of caves, but I have gone on tours. Once the guide turned out the lights briefly just to give us a sense of total darkness. Everything seemed to crash in.
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Yes, that panic rises up immediately. I have candles in every room of my house . . . and flashlights.
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That does seem incredible. I went spelunking with a bunch of teenagers in New Mexico, and Frank’s right. When we turned out the lights, I’ve never felt such thick darkness – and I’ve danced with the devil! I couldn’t tell if my eyes were open or closed, and I was at the verge of panic. But it was awesome to sit with all that emotion and just let it pass. Or flip on the lights:)
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It’s a memory of a place that will always feel special to me.
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The mountains are majestic, including it’s roots.
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They are!
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I enjoyed this piece. Very descriptive, but nonetheless majestic
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Thanks, Nitin!
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