OLD ONE

Did you stand upon this spot 
thinking yourself ruler of all you surveyed?
Did you feel strong and sure,
or small and afraid, with spirits about
as devils danced on cave walls in firelight?

When your bones were awakened, carried
from the cavern below the cliff, did you know?
Are you still here...are you me; am I with you?
A thousand years ago did our lives/life end/begin.

Did I paint that graceful deer on the ceiling of the cave?
The buffalo, the antelope running free?
All run there still, frozen in crimson and yellow.
Are those your palm prints there on the wall? Mine?

You have not left the circle , old one. 
You are here, in me 
and there, in my son 
and I/we are you.

The wheel turns...
The wheel turns...
The wheel turns...

©William Davis1/17/99