It is the cave itself
has curated these pictures,
head by equine head
horn by locked horn,
an animal colouring book
for pre-school children.
These are the animation keys
put aside for the trace and paint
of history – cached images
some thirty thousand years in loading up:
a delay long enough to see off
the Neanderthals while
Homo sapiens hung on, hung on.
The floor has been overlaid
with metal tracking
to conserve the litter
of scattered ursine vertebrae
bloated now like bulky parcels.
Smears of carbon chips
from fires that were surely
lit to show this work
at private views tread out
in this carved gorge of the Ardeche.
And currently the breached interior
presents the steel door of a strong room
which we side step through our own
permissive passageway- our weekend haunt,
East Finchley High Road where the Phoenix is.
- Terry Jones
Highly Commended in the Lupus UK International Poetry Competition 2011
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