Mineral Red

The beginning of symbols

From that primate attention

To red flushes and blushes

And blood—the punctuation

Of apes’ social lives became

Early ornamentation,

The preferential digging

Of the reddest ochre clay

For your ancestors to paint

On bodies, tools, and weapons.

Did someone say something first,

Sing, dance, gesture signs in air?

Maybe. The exact sequence

Of which ritual came first

Will be hard to reconstruct.

But somewhere in there, the game

Began. Temples, libraries,

Movies, porn, wars, World Cups.