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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Sagittarius of Taurus: The Workshop Stove
17° TAurus 30′ to 19° TAurus 59′
The little woodstove burns cheerfully bright,
fed with waste, scraps, and shavings from the bench.
It keeps the gluepot warm, and sheds some light
for torquing bolts to tightness with a wrench
or testing twist in a board out of true,
or seeing how tight a dovetail is cut.
If a joint’s made right, it gets dabbed with glue,
but for some casework, it’s open and shut.
He breaks the panel or snaps the bad rail,
and opens the door where the fire shines.
Average work could go in a seconds sale,
poorly finished crafts, of artless design.
But flawed work he feeds to the hungry flame,
warming his hands with what won’t bear his name.
Image: A writer, scribe, or calligrapher in winter feeds damaged or imperfect papers to a wood stove in their scriptorium.
Important Relationships
- Part of Ptolemy’s Term of Jupiter
- Part of Decan II of Taurus (administrated by Moon): The Lingam-Yoni
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.
