Paul Vermeersch

1973 / Mississauga

The Painted Beasts of Lascaux

Their discovery has been a kind of homecoming, too.
Part of you has been here before, germinal, hidden.
A painted hand resting on the stone. A molecule.
A memory of muscled, brawling giants buried
deep within, their horns goring the darkness
locked in the rock of ages. These horses were born
thousands, tens of thousands of years too soon
to be anything but horses. Too soon to be centaurs,
too soon to be starships. Remember, these herds
are the same on these walls as they were in their fields
as they are in your mind. Listen. Their hoof beats
trampling this ancestral earth are still the drums
that drive the song rising red in your marrow.
The abiding chant of the hundred billion dead
who came before you. Their distant voices vanished
into your voice, deepening it. Their song the song
that's been snarled in your heart - breaking it,
trying to work its way free - for your entire life.
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