Cave Art

The caves of Altamira, Spain
were painted, it is said
not by one or a collaborative few
pondering together the arrangement of forms into a composition,
but by strangers
wandering in and out,
each adding independently their own designs--
a hand or deer or buffalo--
their mark upon the world.

So, too, it was on the walls of the gas station bathroom.
The wandering strangers left their marks
not in pigments of red or yellow ochre
but with technology quite new—
sharpies, pocketknives, and written word.
They etched their works in jagged strokes upon the peeling paint.

Their subject matter mostly centered
incoherent curses
but one corner housed
a whole political debate.

They had no antelope nor spears
but still, a ghost of beastly hunts—
of chasing or of being chased—
perhaps is recognized.

Spacious though the canvas was,
it struggled to contain the thoughts
of its collaborators—
so much they had to say
that like the painters of Lascaux
they simply overlapped the strokes of others who had gone before,
interlocking cries into a web.

To a conservator’s dismay,
some of their words were silenced
by a mist of sapphire aerosol spray
but still, they can be read
by those who care to see.

An anthropologist who stops and looks quite carefully
can trace the lines below the paint
and read what lies beneath—
the testaments of artist souls and neolithic dreams.