What made that first man
pick up his stone and send
scratches sprawling
in multiplying efficiency
of purpose over the white bone?
Torn from a carcase,
scrawled on at leisure,
with that action came
hooting and laughing
as his slow brain resided in
the graven image.
What came to him there,
when for the first time,
he looked at his art, seeing
only inadequate show
of his own poor frame?
He was fixed in that first wonder,
no longer stooping,
as the pleasurable mindâgrow
began in pain.
This poem is from my collection Signs, which is available through Amazon here
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