Wrist Deep

Adam in the Cave

Because there were no words
for bison, hyena, lion or horse,
Adam began collecting
the necessary equipment
for naming animals—red ochre,
crushed, black charcoal, spit,
water, fire with which to see—
and started drawing,

scraped clean the surface rock,
cleared lichen and mold,
hit white stone and made outlines.

Completely alone—
with no voice from God
but an urge to make it
permanent in pigment

(his thin inadequate torch
rousing his silhouette into dance
against the tighter spaces)—

he pressed further into the earth
sketching manes, horns twisting
(years before they became
hollowed instruments)
like the arms of spiral galaxies.

And have you heard the halls of the Chauvet Caves?
Hundreds of hand-stenciled hand-prints
spread like fields of wheat or willow
reaching out through time and stone?

Curious it took anthropologists so long;
it took them navigating passageways,
arching backs and scraping skin to find them,
(nearly out of breath, unable to speak,
their fires quenched from lack of oxygen)
for them to understand.

With no reference to know, no light now to see,
he spit red against the wall, against the wall his hand;
his only word for Adam; his only word for Man.