Wednesday, May 4, 2022

Paleolithic

The acacia is two-dimensional and
pasted against the orange sun,
bloated as it falls by degrees below
the bleached savannah grass.
An entourage of stars follows in its wake,
diamonds displayed on black velvet.
Cricket philosophers discuss the circadian loss of light
and the inevitable folding of day into night.
The earth, now cured of fever, begins to breathe again,
and wanton seeds are free to indulge in lust.
A spark of fire in the distance,
a white pinprick in the evolution of darkness,
reveals that it is man who has grown from the clay.
He raises his head, jaw open and set,
already the ostentatious fool,
and issues a howl that will echo for millennia
in the valleys of war and peace
and up through the fragile taproots of life.
A lion roars, and myths are hammered into bronze
as invincible gods rule prophetic constellations
that pinwheel across uncomprehending minds.
In the morning, sunlight strikes steel and glass
jutting audaciously above the horizon,
the subway beneath Manhattan roaring.
Philosophers and shamans are quiet for now
as a secretary strides across the savannah.
Her forehead and brow grow to enormous proportions
as she begins to chisel letters
into the bark of the acacia tree.

~William Hammett

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