for Evie
Hum the words with me and you might understand:
mammoth ivory, hematite, limestone,
black jet, soapstone, antler and fired clay –
all of these become our bodies because
our bodies are the place of becoming.
They would not emphasize our hips and breasts
or underline the low triangled cleft,
and would not know to rhyme the bison horn
with the horned moon and our monthly flesh
without the genius our nine months gives them
in our seething, essential, swelling dark.
Feast and wear and build with bone, skin and sinew,
but by taking the time to make us
in the only way they can approximate –
hand-held bodies mostly handless, mostly
faceless, mostly propped up for gazing –
they make a simple bottomless mystery
of our bodies and the earth, the round year,
the rounded belly and the circled life.
Since they will never acquiesce to ours
they will worship strength and others like them
and will build to forget that they aren’t it.
But sing the words with me and you might understand:
Lespugue, Laussel, Hohle Fels and Willendorf,
Brassempouy, Dolní Věstonice
and Gönnersdorf – we’ve always been here.
Buy Bone Antler Stone here
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