in the caves

today while exploring the rose valley -- where the soil is pink -- i climbed up into the caves, people's homes from back when life was different.

strange! nothing left behind at all from the people that lived there, except for broken down straw on the dusty ground. there were however plastic bottles and beer bottle caps from people who climb up to watch the sunsets and put the moves on their girls; in one of the caves, an entire rusting hibachi.

bits of the floor scuff free under your feet and there are loose pebbles in the walls, but i could not crumble the caves where they did not themselves want to be crumbled.

most of the caves i looked at had one only room. some of the more complex ones had low walls, platforms for sitting or some that looked big enough for sleeping. one had a second room you got to down a long narrow hallway, and steps to take you up to one of the higher levels, and a hole cut through to let light in from above.

the caves all had alcoves cut into the walls where the inhabitants would place candles or oil lamps. one cave had a hearth with a sooty fire scar and clay blocks where you could place meat to cook it.

i climbed up into one cave, pulled myself up into it: but it was no ordinary cave. right away you could see it had an interior door with a cross painted over it in red, and caverns cut into the ground that you could see were once covered with wooden planks. through the entrance under the cross and you were in a cave church, with a high vaulted ceiling carved, painted, and four pillars, cut into the rock like those chinese lions with freerolling spheres in the teeth, the whole thing cut from one piece. at the front was the altar and there was a little soot mark on the wall like the ghost of a candle, and yellow wax dripped onto the rock beneath like its earthly remains. red painted triangles and crosses on the walls.

to live in a cave. very possible for life to be different.