Font-de-Gaume

Don Hogle

Mr. Clean wipes away the children’s

handprints with a swipe of his Magic

Eraser, then winks at us, as if to say,

They’re just kids. And we forgive

their painted palms and the wormy dirt

of their play, because their laughter,

rippling through the labyrinth

of laundry on the lines, reminds us that

life not only continues, but persists.

In the cave at Font-de-Gaume,

where bison, mastodons, deer and

woolly mammoths were painted,

you see the outline of a hand held

up to stone, black pigment blown

through a bone to surround it

fourteen thousand years ago.

It’s as if Cro-Magnon man

knew you would arrive one day:

he hails, waves at you, asks for your

attention, motions you to approach,

invites you with this shape-of-a-hand

to place your hand within his.

He waits for you on the other side

of time, anxious for a touch of what

he imagined, crouched near dying

coals, unknowable lights throbbing

above him in the black maw of night.

His other hand holds the end of a thread,

the long line you grip tightly now,

as you cast it with so little certainty

into the rising seas, your footprints

washed out with the tide.