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 Cancer: The Morning Oven
22° Cancer 30′ to 24° Cancer 59′
The dough becomes ready before the Sun,
airing in darkness like vampires:
so bakers awake, before day’s begun,
to burn the dreams of yeasty empires
that in nine generations, overnight,
built a vast nation that rose and floured,
distributed water, and won its fight
with salt, and with sweet honey empowered
its colonists to expand the borders.
But now the oven door is opening —
and yeasty princes in gluten arbors
add flavor to the bread in their dying.
Like Aeneas, fleeing Troy's burning groves —
a lump is saved, to start tomorrow’s loaves.
Image: A baker sets aside dough and feeds some new starter while the oven rages to bake bread.
Important Relationships
- Part of the Egyptian Term of Venus in Cancer
- Part of Decan III of Cancer (administrated by the Moon): The Overflowing Cup
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.
