t h e   p i c t u r e   s t o n e s

:   m o n i c a   p a c e

That modern man must stoop to greet his past
Is etched in equine gods upon the stone
Below. Inheritors of form who graft
The soul into sienna, and who hone
A tendon from the trance-touched world of moss;
These plosive, sculpted tracts of pigment drum
Hoof-hammers through the depths. Were they to cross
Beyond the stabs of caves into the sun
Their fluent tails would limn the landscape gold.
And what would quicken them?—A breath to clay
As such first stirred in us? we scrawl and mould
A scattered logic, stored against the day
When you unearth a stamp of subtler fame—
The universal verse that is our name.

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