I
In the deep dust of the earth
a small Magdalenian whistle.
No longer a flint chipped
in a laborious struggle for life.
But tiny notches on three faces
of an eagle bone
marked out a year of moons.
Described by scholars as
“decorative” or “insignificant”:
it was the first book.
Not so much faber as
sky watcher, casually
he blew into the whistle.
II
The first woman’s face
is five centimeters high.
Delicate hair
rises from a slightly
rounded forehead.
Age has not blurred
her oblique and pensive gaze.
Carved in mammoth ivory
she was abandoned
at Dolní Věstonice.
III
In the cave at Sterkfontein (Transvaal),
on the appearance of the first men
recognized as men by science,
they settled in the same chamber
where their ancestors
had been devoured in turn
by hyenas and big cats,
its earlier inhabitants.