To a Stone Age Artist

Patrick Deeley

I gripped the half-bucket

of pig’s blood, thick

and frothed, my mother

about to make pud

retrieving her red hand

from all that slather.

But what you had in mind

was a stone chosen

for its own ochre colour—

crushed, mushed

into mud. Stir-about of sap

or spit, an adhesive.

There you plunged your mitt,

maker, rememberer,

plunged and withdrew it

dripping, glistening,

placed the palm flat against

the roof of the cave.

Got a start—much as I do,

so many millennia

later—at the sight it gave

back. The mark of yourself,

staunchly impressed,

mix of beauty and terror.

PATRICK DEELEY is a poet, memoirist and children's writer from County Galway in the west of Ireland. Keepsake, his eighth collection with Dedalus Press, has just been published.