The Cave Painters Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AA BCDBEFGH IJKLMBN OBPQRRRS TUQVBDWJXQBRYRB RRRRQRURRZSB A2BRBB2DC2D2QJ| A | |
| A | |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| Holding only a handful of rushlight | B |
| they pressed deeper into the dark at a crouch | C |
| until the great rock chamber | D |
| flowered around them and they stood | B |
| in an enormous womb of | E |
| flickering light and darklight a place | F |
| to make a start Raised hands cast flapping shadows | G |
| over the sleeker shapes of radiance | H |
| - | |
| They've left the world of weather and panic | I |
| behind them and gone on in drawing the dark | J |
| in their wake pushing as one pulse | K |
| to the core of stone The pigments mixed in big shells | L |
| are crushed ore petals and pollens berries | M |
| and the binding juices oozed | B |
| out of chosen barks The beasts | N |
| - | |
| begin to take shape from hands and feather tufts | O |
| soaked in ochre manganese madder mallow white | B |
| stroking the live rock letting slopes and contours | P |
| mould those forms from chance coaxing | Q |
| rigid dips and folds and bulges | R |
| to lend themselves to necks bellies swelling haunches | R |
| a forehead or a twist of horn tails and manes | R |
| curling to a crazy gallop | S |
| - | |
| Intent and human they attach | T |
| the mineral vegetable animal | U |
| realms to themselves inscribing | Q |
| the one unbroken line | V |
| everything depends on from that | B |
| impenetrable centre | D |
| to the outer intangibles of light and air even | W |
| the speed of the horse the bison's fear the arc | J |
| of gentleness that this big bellied cow | X |
| arches over its spindling calf or the lancing | Q |
| dance of death that | B |
| bristles out of the buck's | R |
| struck flank On this one line they leave | Y |
| a beak headed human figure of sticks | R |
| and one small chalky human hand | B |
| - | |
| We'll never know if they worked in silence | R |
| like people praying the way our monks | R |
| illuminated their own dark ages | R |
| in cross hatched rocky cloisters | R |
| where they contrived a binding | Q |
| labyrinth of lit affinities | R |
| to spell out in nature's lace and fable | U |
| their mindful blinding sixth sense | R |
| of a god of shadows or whether like birds | R |
| tracing their great bloodlines over the globe | Z |
| they kept a constant gossip up | S |
| of praise encouragement complaint | B |
| - | |
| It doesn't matter we know | A2 |
| they went with guttering rushlight | B |
| into the dark came to terms | R |
| with the given world must have had | B |
| as their hands moved steadily | B2 |
| by spiderlight one desire | D |
| we'd recognise they would before going on | C2 |
| beyond this border zone this nowhere | D2 |
| that is now here leave something | Q |
| upright and bright behind them in the dark | J |
Eamon Grennan
(1)
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