A question to the bastard who first laid a finger on the cave wall

Did you have any idea of what that finger held
All ground up and wet on its end?

Did you ever think your antlered god
Might one day gore the Earth?

I can’t blame you for wanting to draw him,
For wanting to show, as exactly as you could,
The figure that came to you in your dream.

I understand your lack of choice,
How you had no words to speak of his image,
Words like the bends of his tongue and throat.

How his sounds were familiar, but were not,
And persisted as the kind of blotch on your vision
That blinking does not clear, the kind that comes
When you watch a fire too long, or stare at the sun.

How his voice sputtered and carried. How it varied
In pitch and carried as your fires echo in the cave.

It did not rise from the gut, nor was it coarse
Like for the noises made at all the simple things
You run from, touch and eat. It was less dense,
Like a touch to water versus a touch to stone,
Giving and inconsistent.

But unlike most things which come in dreams, the sounds
And from where they came remained. You did not have to
Struggle to remember them come morning. You had to
Struggle to imagine what to make of them come noon.


-----


Spit and ash,
Spit and ash
In your palm,
On your finger.

By the light of a fire you made for this purpose,
Spit and ash in your palm and on your finger.

First came the antlers, branching from a head.
The neck and shoulders followed on
To waist and legs and feet.

You spat and dipped your fingers in the ash
And made certain his lines were thick and clear.

When you were finished, the others had returned
For the evening and their feast of meats and greens.
You ate little, waiting until they were full before you
Bade them follow, grabbing arms and a log from the fire.

You lead them to that far off corner
Where your spit and ash were laid.

The breathing of the others grew quiet upon the sight.
One stepped out and reached his hand to touch
The figure, but faltered, and looked
To you instead.

They wondered,
And looked to you
For how this shape had come
Upon the wall. You had brought them
But, with their eyes, they demanded more.

Of what, they were not sure and nor were you,
But a reminiscent glimmer emerged with their questioning,
A look in their eyes like you had seen first the night before,
That had come with the antlered figure who spoke his words.
And of those words, which on to you were only sounds,
Three syllables rose above the rest. You thought,
Remembered them, and pointed to the wall.

You spoke that word,
Just as the antlered god had,
And they all repeated what you said.



***********

i kind of plan on this being the begging of the poem, is that a bad idea? would i be milking a dead horse, kinda?