* * *
II
The waters were speaking into the ear of the sky.
Stags, you have leapt millennial space
From the darkness of the rock to the air’s caresses.
How, from my spacious shore, I adore their passion:
The hunter who presses, and the spirit who sights you.
What if, in the instant of hope, I had their eyes?
[GS]
III
The unnameable Beast rounds off the graceful herd, like a comic cyclops.
Eight jibes adorn her and divide her folly.
The Beast belches devoutly in the country air.
Her heavy hanging flanks are aching and must empty their charge.
From her hooves to the horns that helplessly defend her, a rank scent surrounds her.
Comes to me thus, in the frieze at Lascaux,
Mother inconceivably disguised,
Wisdom, her eyes filled with tears.
[MH]