By Margarete Atwood
Deep under, far back
The early horses run
O rock/ the buffalo, the deer
The other animals (extinct)
Run with spears in their backs
Made with blood, with colored
Dirt, with smoke, not meant
To be seen but to remain
There hidden, potent
In the dark, the link between
The buried will and the upper
World of sun and green feeding,
Chase and hungry kill
drawn by a hand hard
Even to imagine
but passed on
In us, part of us now
Part of the structure of the bones
existing still in us
As fossil skulls
Of the bear, spearheads, bowls and
Folded skeletons arranged
In ritual patterns, waiting
For the patient searcher to find them
exist in caves of the earth.
