A Legacy and a Commonplace

The old art—the old, old art
That the cautious hate to call
Art, since, you know, that’s modern,

And shouldn’t apply to old,
Old, old drawings and carvings
Made by premodern people,

Who didn’t have the concept,
As if that’s a certainty—
Stays strange. And so, so human.

Other animals mark turf,
Make rich communications,
But who else tries symbolic

Representation, and what
Human population won’t?
The scratched lines showing canoes,

Longboats, spear-hunting parties,
The elaborate creatures
In ochre smears, the abstract

Spirals, triangles, and dots
Suggestive of calendars—
You see them and you know them

As meaningful to someone,
Whether you know what they meant
Or, much more probably, don’t.

Art is meaning’s debitage,
Or meaning’s hearth, the symbols
Meaning’s children and toolbox,

Those signs that mean, long after
Everyone’s forgotten what
They meant, that meaning was meant.