Prehistorical Art Poem

Handprints on the Cavern Wall

It was never easy without language, though we did make signs

To carve or paint on to the walls of caves. We searched

With little torches, and we followed ancient lines

Created long before our ancestors—perched

At the very edge of time—to find the rooms

That echoed with our songs, and where we danced

Between the darkness within and without, with booms

Of our feet and hands, and the light that was enhanced

By our communal dreams. You ask for words,

And we had them in a way: they were for children,

When mothers had to put their infant down,

It was those sounds in place of soothing hands

That gave them comfort, both of them, as when

She answered cry for cry, coo and cooing.  Hands

Too we outlined on the wall in place of fright

And in the animals we saw our light.

Poem in a New Year

News of a Recent Passing

We should have known more was wrong than what you said.

You were never one to moan and display your pains.

But I did not expect this news, this word that you were dead.

Now my head is splitting. Guilt weighs on my brains.

The other news from over there has to do with weather,

High temperatures, drowning  seaside crowds,

Fanatics with their clashing cars—all that is blather.

Nothing.  The sky collapses on my head.

Should he marry him or she her? Whether

One may choose the time of death? Heads bowed

Before the surge of politics.  You’re gone

Before I had the time to say farewell.

My fault for not suspecting.  Mea culpa!

The man who wasn’t there on the stairwell

Doesn’t matter,  unless it was you.  Does it matter?

Chicken Little, go away, and leave me grieve alone.