Cave Painting

(after La Grotte de la Loue, by Gustave Courbet)

I was not accustomed to dark
I made my eye into a pencil
and
I saw bent figures
among the stalagmites
heard their voices 
I reached into the hole
to pick them out
but my fingers were too big
paint they said
paint the past
our imaginations are wild horses
on empty plains
paint the future
I told them
we are waiting for you.