Cave Paintings, Onuke Kundi,
Near Hampi, India
Boulders of granite tossed in
tumbling piles around a flat oasis
of date palms hold the plateau
safe from intrusion.
Camouflaged by the earth’s ochre,
a bulge of rock with deer,
where men, no longer sticks with sticks,
come to shape with spears,
hunt across granite.
The curl of the human form
troubles insurgent shapes
in a chaos of creative surge,
figure over figure, life coming up from life
on boulders smoothed by sun,
where stories are thrown back.
The impulse to endure and command the life-force
from within and survive its incoherence,
the errors of time, pain of life,
drawn as mirrors to existence,
painted up.
We live. Art says so.
Outlives our bones.