Supplicant
horse or beast
kneeling Alien dropped to its knees by Force or
interdiction
it
might as well have been a cave painting
for its delicate arc the fluidity
of its linework
a practiced hand
who tried to ascribe intone motion
eight-legged
animals running horses deer and bison
stampedes
they
directed by numbers pounding skins or red-pearl fires scorching the earth salting
and ashing the skies for their hunt
smarmy Man has not changed
or evolved much
the four-legged human forms wearing either masks or tight headgear
fashioned from
skins
hardrendered wagons carts and chariots
at its edges snarling bears and panthers
Above wing wings a
flurry of mad flight
the astonished delight of game birds pinionrendered ducks geese pheasants chickens
And overarching these
phenomenal arrays
a naked hand in steadfast
repose
flat
and spread on the cave stone
outlined by
yellowcake ochre and something turned black
flat submissive
other colours unformed by minerals or
dyes
beyond its splayed fingers
wounded elephants aurochs
stabbed with spears
bashed
with clubs
banged
by round stones
snorting flecks of blood from black nostrils
and beyond
on a severe flat plane
a facet
stodgy
milling
unconcerned cattle and sheep
they bowed
submissive
in the throes of believing perhaps creating something larger than themselves
more formidable
to
protect them from beasts and climate
recalling those bigger than themselves when they were small
encouraging a protector
not
fashioning a god
a kind alien
dispossessed
of flesh and frailty
Invoked
an Overseeing eye
a Compass
a
steward ahead of the plodding Game
a
strategian to waylay ambush and help fill their bellys
find water
to
slack their thirst when they were forced to hunt and Move
always Moving
like
the white points they saw overhead
on the precarious hiding dark
yet somehow
amid the ferocity and cofusion
some fixity was arranged to define
find
this
cave again
to
return to this brief
quiet
shelter
1837, Friday,
25 7. 14
