Over thirty-two-thousand years ago,
in southern France above the Ardeche River,
under a limestone cliff,
inside the Chauvet Caves,
our ancestors marked the stone—
bison, mammoth, bear,
the sweating flanks of horses,
eyes fixed on the observer.
In that place of deep silence,
layer upon layer,
outside of time,
a community endures.
Most of us will never see it
except through film or photograph.
Still, we carry it—
we are what remains.
Before temples, before cities—
before written names—
we measured by sky:
sun, moon, the turning of stars.
Stories moved us forward—
through shamans, rabbis,
sheikhs, lamas—
through those who spoke
what could not be held.
We became artists,
mystics,
makers of meaning.
A beginning:
a fearful, lonely I am.
A creation, a cosmos,
crossing ice,
to walk the earth,
to unite I
am to I am,
and for a moment
we did not turn away.
