Petroglyphs, Lascaux wall creatures,
all in browns and reds of easy dyes,
or red hands on cave walls in the desert,
prison inmates doing Shakespeare,
England’s operas performed
by the homeless. On the night
of the Family Renaissance Faire,
my 4th and 5th grade students
became Pyramus and Thisbe
at Midsummer Night’s wall
in rolling performances staged
at the end of various school hallways.
I dashed here and there calling out,
“I need a moon!” “I need a hole!”
But the principals were wickedly histrionic.
They got it. Early arts engage
with a new-born drive impelled
by discovered magic,
animal spirits speared
in a ritual rehearsal with hope
for a day of good hunts,
then a cell or a cave or box or bed
to sigh down into at the end
of Creation Day.
Carol Hamilton
Carol Hamilton has recent and upcoming publications in Louisiana Review, Caveat Lector, Atlanta Review, New Delta Review, Lascaux Review, Sow’s Ear Poetry, Tar River Review, Main Street Rag, among others. She is the author of Master of Theater: Peter the Great and Lexicography.. She is a former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma and have been nominated five times for a Pushcart Prize.
Artwork: The Cave of Hands, Gua Tewet, Borneo, public domain
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