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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Leo of Cancer: The Field Workshop
2° Cancer 30′ to 4° Cancer 59′
It’s hot, and the guys are stripping their shirts,
which are powdered in sawdust… and sweaty.
A striptease, it’s not — no obvious flirts
present themselves; no one’s looking pretty.
The foreman’s not yelling… yet… but the air
carries the fragrance of sawn pine, and musk.
The thuds of roofing nails, the hammers repair
of a post out of square. Sunup to dusk,
men wordlessly yell for tools, for lumber,
for more nails, or an extra pair of hands.
As day wears on, everyone gets dumber;
no eye can make sense of sketches or plans,
and everyone’s joints are both loos and stiff;
and minds are mushy, as homeward they drift.
Image: Several people of various levels of skill and experience do construction tasks at a building site. One master artisan, a couple of foremen types, and a crew of untrained newcomers.
Important Relationships
- Part of the Egyptian Term of Mars in Cancer
- Part of Decan I of Cancer (administrated by Venus): The Mother and Child
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.
