Sentinel Disappears Briefly

for D.Dass


Sentinel slips behind
the waterfall to run
his hands across the old
paintings. The mist clings
to his shirt
pools on his collar and trickles
down, following his spine.

Sentinel gazes at the ochre
deer and the shadows
of the hunting party and the lighter
circles above them all ⎯
time passed?
weather?
ancestors?

The roar of rushing water is
a harness ⎯
the external indicator of place
that keeps feet firmply spaced
on the wet, smooth rock which,
in the ambient light,
looks strangely jagged.

The roar calls Sentinel back.
The same flood of sound that hid
this artist so many years ago.
Sentinel looks at the care in the painting.
The arcs in the curves, the distances between
the figures. Such a display of intimacy
for subject. Artist cherished this story,
so much so that he had needed to remove
himself from the world to record it.

Sentinel traces the fleeing
back of a deer. He holds his
ear against the thin chest
of a hunter. Sentinel makes a quick
cut into his hand
letting the blood darkly
reflecting glints of water-filtered
light. He adds a distanced circle
above the hunt. Neither leading
nor trailing. Distanced or connected.
Just deep red that will either wash away
or grow brown behind the water.