In dank caves when fire was new

All of the light of the world

Rolled in waves off of our fingertips

Into piles of ashy remains

Of carbon that was also

once

a living thing

 

Bygone names

to match bygone tales

Venus of Wilendorff,

Voluptuous and full

She would tell us our secrets

If only she knew them too

 

Stories were our solace

When the sun turned her head

A blacksmith’s hammer catching just a glint,

We forged our own realities

With images

With words

With all that went unsaid

 

Unraveling into knitted parables

A loose thread woven into tapestries

To delight

to confuse

Oh, the more we knew

Yes. The more we knew.

 

On a cobblestone street

lined with the newly printed word

The West recalled her gods of yore 

White marble emerging from dark years

We remembered our secrets

Our efforts giving birth

To what we already knew

 

Time goes on,

As She is wont to do

A Midas decay turning kings to gold

And old things into new