The Cave of Painted Things
When the sun was young and the planets penned
Pyroclastic poems and sent
Caustic mail and cosmic cards
There coursed a stream that carved in stone, a cave
A cave of painted things
Long after rain and rock had locked
The limestone hollows up, the land awoke
It seeded life and nursed both myth and fable
And then poured people out its ladle
And of these folk descended one
A fickle farmer who lived between
The French township of Bas Sainte-Marie
And the Spanish slopes of the Pyrenees
One day, he walked with his old dog
And drank a final dreg of gin
When he came upon an uprooted log
Beside of which was a hole that led
To a pillared stalagmite hall
Limestone walls, white and wreathed
In faded red and ochre inks
Depicting strange and antique beings
That long had left the land except
Within that cave of the painted things
There were elk and deer, and people, of course
There were bison, beasts, and an ancient horse
There were lions, leopards, and legends of yore
And bones, bones, bones, dusty and worn
The locals were stunned, the scientists flocked
To the art museum buried beneath the bedrock
Artifacts archived, prizes all stowed
The past was packed up and put into totes
Then a man asked, “So, where does this go?”
Spain claimed it all, which pissed off the French
And being from Europe, they each dug a trench
All the while, the farmer had sneakily left,
Thus, when the nations met with demands
They learned that the British had bought up the land
The sale of their cave had them so incensed,
The Spanish and yes, even the French,
They in fact
Allied together in a Catholic pact
To expel the invaders, the beasts from the North!
But just before the British were battled,
A battalion of Italians, medallions in hand
Declared this was once a proud Roman fort
And they’d filed a claim with international courts
So it was that the Brits,
The Spanish, and yes, even the French,
They in fact
Made like good gauls, a grim little pact
To expel the invaders, the beasts from the South!"
But Italy's infamy ended in infancy
A contingent of Indians arrived with an infantry
Claiming ancestry, albeit a tad distantly:
“This cave was painted by neanderthal hands,
Whose genetics are most shared by the Indian man.
These are our stories and pictures, so please if you would
Depart and decolonize these Indian lands.”
So the Italians and Brits,
The Spanish, and yes, even the French,
They in fact
Threw away the EU for a more permanent pact
To expel the invaders, the beasts from the East!
But just before the onset of world war
A delegation of animals came to the fore
There were elk and deer, bison and horse
And the farmer’s old dog, grumpy, of course
They were led by a stag. He stared at the masses
Then he pulled out some notes and donned reading glasses,
He licked his hoof and turned to a page
He cleared his throat and proudly proclaimed:
“Baaaaah, Baaaah, Baaaah,
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Baaaaaaah!
Ehah, ehah! Eeehah”
All were silent. The armies all blinked
A couple men sniffled, some shifted their feet...
So it was that the Indians
The Italians and Brits,
The Spanish, and yes, even the French,
They in fact
Declared on that day a homosapien pact!
To expel the invaders, the beasts from...
Well, everywhere.
But just before man and nature endangered the cave
There came a clattering clang
The cobbles convoked and entered the squabble
Then in Staccato, the stones in unison sang:
“This cave was carved out of my brethren’s bones.
I shan’t let you erode, by hand or by toe,
Nor move but an inch, a singular stone!”
There came a reply, not from man or from beast,
Rather from below, from a chattering creek.
“The cave’s empty space was made by my kin
Ancestral streams
They sculpted all that’s within.”
All were silent. The armies all blinked.
A couple men sniffled, some shifted their feet.
Animals mumbled, and the murmuring rose—
The rocks started fidgeting with claystone and loam.
Thus it was that the wilds and the Indians,
The Italians and Brits,
The Spanish, and yes, even the French,
They in fact
Formed a union, a sort of biotic contract
To expel the invaders, the beasts from the...
Ah, who cares where they’re from!
And so the battle began, or it would have if not
For the farmer who’d found the cave had returned
Now quite drunk again and reeking of gin
He proposed in slurred speech, “Trouvez l’origine”
The Italians nodded like they knew what he meant
But the Indians, they hardly spoke any French
And the Brits, they barely knew how to speak!
Yet the rocks knew some Greek, and the animals Latin
Soon everyone knew what needed to happen
They needed a judge to try this dispute
It was decided the highest magistrate of repute,
Was the mountain, the mother, who’d carved up the land
She alone could hold the gavel in hand
They struck out and they searched
For the tallest of hills and the girthiest dirts,
For the genesis of people, of places, and things
For the mother of life, boulder, and stream
And after great trials they traced all the rivers,
Like arrows with tails, back to their quiver,
To the tallest of mountains, only to see...
It had buggered off and become a valley.
Yet all was not lost, a voice boomed and then sundered
The land from the sea. So woke from its slumber,
The Earth itself! The Earth itself!
Speaking from the rift of a maritime shelf,
It humbly deemed, “I might be of some help.”
“You see, you are bickering about illusions and dust.
Heritage and lineage,
At best they are badges
Wear them if you must, but beware that they rust.”
The present can’t bind the past in its girdle
“Here was once there, while who, when, and where—
They’re off that a-ways, spinning in a circle.”
“So little pigments on my earthen skin
Go to bed and be happy until you are shed.
Your small thin within means so little
To the great wide beyond.”
All was silent. The armies all blinked.
A couple men sniffled, some shifted their feet.
Animals mumbled, the murmuring rose—
The rocks started fidgeting with claystone and loam.
The stream lit a cigarette and started to smoke
So it was in the end, that the stream and the stones,
The wilds and Indians,
The Italians and Brits,
the Spanish, and yes, even the French
They in fact
Gathered together and gave the Earth a good smack
