Did it begin with darkness and light, and realisation
that a cave offered more than shelter? Was a child
entertained by a shadow bird flying in the firelight?
Imagine the first tentative outline at Lascaux
seventeen thousand years ago: clay and soot;
water or spit; for a brush, an index finger –
then flayed branches or a trimmed bison tail.
That bison, horses, large cats, a bear and a rhino run
along stone galleries.
A huge bull, in its own chamber; mythical even then.
And humans. Of course, humans.
Millennia earlier, a Neanderthal person –
who says it was a man? – tongued a mouthful of spit
into chewed charcoal and spat black breath around
their right hand splayed tight against a cave wall.
Invisible artists, leaving behind signs of imagination
with bones of the hunted, sacrificed, or murdered.
It continues, the pairing of deeds and commemoration,
of beauty and countless dead.
In the calm conservation lab a woman bends,
focused, over the page of an Afghan manuscript:
A man sits under a cherry tree that blooms subtle pink.
The green foreground displays its copper origins.
Ultramarine Blue shouts ‘lapis lazuli’ to a tutored eye.
The paper is cream; white deemed too bright for readers’ eyes.
It is time for conservation – a giving of self to
another’s artistry. Embracing invisibility.
There’s a bottle of glue labelled Lascaux on the shelf.
Picture 10680540 © Mary Evans / J. Bedmar / Iberfoto
Karen J McDonnell is from the west of Ireland, and published widely; recently in Vital Signs (Poetry Ireland), Romance Options (Dedalus Press) Work was Best of the Net and Pushcart nominated. Her poem Driftwood was shortlisted for 2021 Irish Poem of the Year. Her poetry collection This Little World is published by Doire Press, with a new collection due in 2025. karenjmcdonnell.com
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