The Millennial Pedestrian

Les Eyzies

All the people in the world arrived
for solstice rituals, son et lumiere.
Summoned to the cavern’s mouth,
they came as we do now,
traveling in careful single file
from antelope to bison,
a guide to light each image.
In the naves and transepts of the cave
poets glorified the chase
and praised the gods
who led the hunters to the prey.

Here we learned to draw
and here we learned to tell each other stories.
The lovers on a Grecian urn descend,
as do the nudes on later staircases,
from these kinetic lions and gazelles.
Here Odysseus, Beowulf and Don Quixote
first breathed and fought and fell in battle.

I long to see the artist in that cave,
to see him paint
with solemn joyful concentration
the moving horse upon the buried stone,
the elk that charges from the cold cave wall
as if alive, as if he knew he was immortal.

And I long to hear my ancestor,
in a voice I recognize as mine,
tell the story of the hunt.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 7th, 2006.
It's part of the New Poems category.
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