The Painted Beasts of Lascaux

Their discovery has been a kind of homecoming, too. 
Part of you has been here before, germinal, hidden. 
A painted hand resting on the stone. A molecule.
A memory of muscled, brawling giants buried 
deep within, their horns goring the darkness 
locked in the rock of ages. These horses were born 
thousands, tens of thousands of years too soon 
to be anything but horses. Too soon to be centaurs, 
too soon to be starships. Remember, these herds 
are the same on these walls as they were in their fields 
as they are in your mind. Listen. Their hoof beats 
trampling this ancestral earth are still the drums 
that drive the song rising red in your marrow. 
The abiding chant of the hundred billion dead 
who came before you. Their distant voices vanished 
into your voice, deepening it. Their song the song 
that’s been snarled in your heart – breaking it, 
trying to work its way free – for your entire life.