The fire licks like a red dog at your boot <br />And I can only marvel that you tame <br />A thing so savage and essential at its root <br />Back down to the primeval of all flame. <br />Soot pictures on the walls time out of mind <br />Scratched out by hands as sudden as bird claws <br />No clock records the moment when unsigned <br />The sun walked barbarously across those flaws. <br />I might have been the woman of that cave <br />From whom you captured day in stick and stones <br />Blowing your breath on crimson coals to save <br />The wonder of that last light on her bones. <br />Then afterwards when darkness filled the room <br />There would be hieroglyphics on the tomb.<br /><br />Sandra Fowler<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/primeval-of-all-flame/
