By: Cynthia Pitman

The Art of Immortality

La Roche-Cotard Cave in France
and Ardales Cave in Spain,
inhabited by Neanderthals
at least 60 millennia ago,
have revealed on their walls
expressions of art.
Straight and curving flutings
made by fingertips dragged through clay
and crowds of handprints stenciled
with ochre and charcoal pigments
disclose that Neanderthals
were far from being the cretins
they were said to be.
Neanderthals created art,
and through this art
they defied extinction,
crying out across millennia:
I AM.
Unlike these distant people,
we Sapiens are too often
silent in our isolation.
Our stories remain unwritten.
Let us stand and reject mortality.
Let us force impressions
of our handprints upon the world
and drag our fingertips
through the endless concrete
beneath our feet.
Let us dig deep and deeper still,
all the way into the center of the earth
if we must,
leaving signs of our existence
on the molten core.
We must not accept that we are
but shadows on Plato’s cave wall.
We must express the art
that lies within each of us.
Let us defy extinction
and shout out I AM to the future
that would otherwise
indifferently leave us behind –
now, while we still have a voice.

The Feast of Day

And now my days are numbered.
I peel them off, one by one,
from Time’s calendar.
As I sit silently
gazing out my window,
each day unfolds before me,
spread like a picnic blanket
on browning grass —
a blanket laden with moments
both savory and sweet:
the chirping of a lone bird
announcing a new day;
the sight of the neighbor boy
speeding down the sidewalk
on his skateboard,
heading toward school
but dreaming he’s flying;
the sun’s rising heat bearing down
through the windowpane
on my timeworn skin;
a baby crying somewhere —
somewhere not far from here;
a siren in the distance
but always too close.
These moments I relish
and keep close to my heart.
The feast has begun:
I have been given a new day.

To Climb Mt. Olympus

An Olympian high diver,
he stands just too-tall enough
on the board to impose
his statuesque form
upon the crowd.
After one stride to the edge,
he jumps with one foot,
bounces,
hovers majestic in the air,
then lands on the board.
He bounces high again,
this time with both feet,
lifting his arms straight overhead,
a stretch sublime.
Sleek as a wet ermine,
ribboned with muscles,
he bends in half, legs straight,
wrapping his thighs
close against his chest
with crossed arms behind his knees.
We watch in awe, our hearts pulsing
with simmering blood,
as he flipsflipsflips in circles,
spinning too quickly
to even be seen.
Then somehow he straightens out
just in time
and, with arms stretched
and hands overhead
crossed as if in prayer,
he slices the water so sharply
it barely bubbles,
like a scalpel cutting flesh.
A swirling shape slithers
and snakes under the water,
then rises and emerges,
beads of water clinging
then sliding down his wet skin
like liquid mercury on bronze.
He shakes them off
strides toward the board,
and climbs the ladder
to the top of Mt. Olympus
to stand tall with the other gods.

In the Darkness

All of my battles
are fought in the darkness.
Daylight bleaches stark white
all the colors I carry within.
Passion lies weak and withered.
Desiccated, castrated,
I curl into a fetal ball.
I weather all that attacks me
with no response at all.
But when night creeps in, passion,
no longer the virgin bride
of daylight, bleeds red again.
Pulsating and quivering.
it guides my hand.
I strike.
Enemies unaware fall.
In the darkness
I reign over myself again.

The Watchtower

Draped in a long, hooded cloak
of midnight black,
my face rubbed dark
with charcoal,
I walk the parapet
back and forth, back and forth,
standing guard against the night.
With only my lantern as defense,
I see the dark roll in
off the mountains,
bringing their mist with it.
Soon the world will be
saturated with black ink.
That is when I, unseen,
will pitch my lantern
deep into the dark
and set the night afire.
Flames will consume
the black mountains
and devour the dark of night.
Once again, light will prevail.
But only for a while.
Tonight and every night
I will walk the parapet again.

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Cynthia Pitman, author of The White Room, Blood Orange, Breathe, and Broken, has been published in Literary Yard, Amethyst Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Third Wednesday (One Sentence Poem Contest finalist), Saw Palm (Pushcart Prize nominee), and other journals, and in anthologies Pain and Renewal, Brought to Sight & Swept Away, Nothing Divine Dies, and What is All This Sweet Work?