The fire licks like a red dog at your boot
And I can only marvel that you tame
A thing so savage and essential at its root
Back down to the primeval of all flame.
Soot pictures on the walls time out of mind
Scratched out by hands as sudden as bird claws
No clock records the moment when unsigned
The sun walked barbarously across those flaws.
I might have been the woman of that cave
From whom you captured day in stick and stones
Blowing your breath on crimson coals to save
The wonder of that last light on her bones.
Then afterwards when darkness filled the room
There would be hieroglyphics on the tomb.
Sandra Fowler
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/primeval-of-all-flame/
