Those Symbols

Narrative cave art
Dated with lasers
Puts the origin

Of symbolic thought
As no more recent
Than fifty thousand

Years or so ago.
The Anthropocene
Now in disfavor

Should kick off with art,
Not plastic or steel.
What’s on that cave wall,

What it’s doing, why
It’s inside a cave,
The near certainty

That its confusion
Of fragmented scenes
Contains not only

Information but
Whatever meaning
Needs to burst inside flame,

That’s what first started
The planet’s stomach
Churning. Those symbols.