By: Goutam Roy

Deep within
a remote Cumbrian cave,
where silence has endured
for millennia,
lay a child—
not yet four—
whom archaeologists
have named Ossick Lass.
She was laid to rest
with quiet intention,
in the early age
of Mesolithic people—
one of the first traces
of human remembrance.
Time has not preserved her whole,
yet her bones,
her small teeth,
and the shell beads
placed beside her
remain—
bearing witness
in their stillness.
Within that darkened chamber
in northern Britain,
something of her endures—
not only as evidence,
but as presence.
A life once lived,
brief and fragile,
now held
in earth and silence.
And even now,
it seems as though
her laughter and her cries
linger faintly
along the cavern walls—
not imagined,
but remembered
in the oldest language
we possess:
the trace
of those who came before us.