The Ghosts of Heaven Read Free Page A

tip.
    Round and down,
    round and down, far below to the ground.
    The falcon, the ferns, the shell.
    They are all trying to tell her something,
    but she does not know what it is.
    She cannot know what it is. Not yet.

 
    IX
    The cave.
    The cave has waited for almost all of time,
    waited for the people to come and make their marks.
    The cave has waited since the rocks were young,
    just after the face of the world cooled,
    when the volcanoes grew still,
    when the cliffs were pushed up to the sky.
    It was a long wait,
    during which,
    nothing lived.
    Stars burned out in the heavens while it waited,
    until finally some tiny filament found a way to copy itself.
    Some long strand, of twisting complexity,
    which made itself anew, and then there were two.
    Ages ached through the heaving dark,
    and burning light, as the filaments grew,
    slowly organized, preparing for the invasion,
    the eruption, of life.
    And then the cave waited no more,
    as ferns grew at its feet, spread, and changed,
    and then there were plants, primal and bare
    the first flowers and brutal trees
    that reached into the air
    with the energy of the young,
    with the infectious power of the young information inside them,
    and the cave was no longer alone.
    Then came the beasts, the first small creatures,
    things that crawled without eyes,
    things that slithered,
    things that heard by smell
    and saw with sound,
    things with hard shells,
    things without bones.
    Next there were legs,
    fur and teeth, fangs
    and horns and now, at last,
    the people,
    come to the high hanging cave
    to make marks in the dark.
    For lifetimes of men,
    they have come to the cave,
    and as the hunters hurl their spears,
    they draw the beasts on the wall.
    But before they can draw the beasts,
    before they can draw a horse or deer or bull,
    they must announce themselves to the dark,
    with the print of their hand at the mouth of the cave.
    It is their way; each and every one who has gone to the caves
    has left the outline of their hand on the wall.
    Ochre blown through a reed,
    red powder blown over the hand held against the rock,
    and the negative print of the hand is made.
    Then, each one who goes to the cave
    must make it his mark and his alone,
    with some sign inside the outline:
    two dots, perhaps; three lines.
    Crossed lines.
    Forking lines.
    Five dots.
    Each one different, and he who goes to the cave now
    has made his mark over forty times, so old is he.
    Forty times the same mark: two lines.
    Two lines.
    Two lines he will make again,
    on this, his final trip.
    It is two lines he has in his mind,
    as he walks with the boy,
    and the girl who bleeds but who does not give children.

 
    X
    Through the wet, dark forest
    she walks,
    behind the boy, behind the one who goes to the caves,
    who leads the way by owl light;
    that half shine of the moon, which will operate on them tonight.
    The basket is hurting her back.
    She stops for a moment
    while the ferns wind around her feet,
    and lifts the weight from her.
    Waits.
    Then walks on after the boy and the man
    while the ferns cry out after her
    saying, understand us! Know us! Be us!
    She doesn’t hear them,
    because her eyes are on the back of the boy
    who is to become what she wants to be.
    She sees
    his weak arms,
    his skinny legs,
    and knows his bad eyes need him to keep close to the old man ahead.
    She hurries, closes the gap
    and almost slams into the boy.
    The face of the cliff:
    the way leads up into the dark
    He who goes to the cave doesn’t stop,
    doesn’t look
    as he whispers one word: climb .
    So they climb.
    Through trailing plants, they make their way
    hand over hand, toehold by toehold.
    In the mind of he who goes to the cave
    is a single thought; dawn is close.
    As they reach the height of the tallest tree,
    a breeze hits them, fresh dawn air,
    and he doesn’t need to look over his shoulder,
    to see that the light is coming soon.
    They need to hurry.
    He increases the pace of his climb,
    and the boy is left