This is a poem in this series of 144 poems that I’m writing based on the dodeks, or twelfth parts, of the Zodiac signs. As far as I know, everybody else calls them dodekatemoria, but that’s a very complicated word to say, so I just call them dodeks.
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Aries of Aries: The Whirlwind
0° Aries 00′ to 2° Aries 29′
A freshening breeze grabs the house shingles
and picks at them like scabs that haven’t healed.
A lightning strike’s waiting; the air tingles —
and here you are, out, standing in your field
while the wind whips dust into spiral twirls
and the lamppost turns on in midday gloom.
Half-staff flag unweaves, just as it unfurls,
and thunder deafens like an empty room.
Each of your arm-hairs straighten like soldiers;
your scream’s in breech on your pregnant tongue’s tip.
The axe, if it comes, strikes head from shoulders.
Still, you won’t release memory’s grip
of fire in sky and fury in heart and the flash —
that makes all things stop — and start.
Image: A person stands alone under a darkening sky just before the lightning strike
Important Relationships
- Part of the:
- Chaldean Term of Jupiter (0° Aries through 7°)
- Egyptian Term of Jupiter (0° Aries through 6°)
- Ptolemaic Term of (0° Aries through 6°)
- Decan I of Aries (administrated by Mars): The Double-Bladed Axe
Colophon
This is a part of a series of poems based on the dodekatemoria, or twelfth parts, of the Zodiac signs. The dodekatemoria are sub-segments of the Zodiac, each representing two degrees thirty minutes (2° 30′) of arc; there are 144 dodeks (as I call them) in the full Zodiac, or twelve in each sign. Each dodek is supposed to be a recapitulation or miniature repetition or summary of its parent zodiac sign, as though it were filtered through the lens of the main sign.
The Sun crosses this distance of 2° 30′ in about two and a half days, making these dodeks cognate with the Moon, which crosses one sign of the Zodiac, or thirty degrees (30°) in about two and a half days. The Sun’s passage through a dodek thus mirrors the Moon’s passage through a sign, and squeezes a “mini-year” of passage through twelve signs into a single month.
Each series of dodeks begins at 0° 00′ of its parent sign with the same sign, and there are four dodeks in each sequence of 10° degrees. Each poem in this series will give a (my) name of the dodek, its relevant degrees, a sonnet describing it, a 1-2 sentence description of the dodek, and some other information.
