Predators in the underbrush,

thunder from an angry god.

A fire takes away the chill, but

the life span is short and lonely.

Hark!

Are they chanting? Calling out to ancestors?

What sounds echo in their ears,

in this cave that is their home?

What sounds, indeed? I wonder —

do they love their young?

or one another? You know

they live on in us,  in our genes,

our blood, shaping us in ways we

know not.  But hark again! Listen closely.

Their reverberations persist deep

within our inner chambers. If you listen

closely you can hear them,

even now.

 

Pub. earlier in Time Wrinkles, 2015