I wrote this poem to illustrate to an extent what I felt.
Depth, The Story
of a Man
He sat alone
With his back to the mouth of a cave.
The cave, new to him,
Was in the middle of a cliff
Halfway up the face
Of a rock wall
Inhabited only by wild sheep
And eagles.
It was early evening
In early autumn;
A fire cast a warm glow
Behind him
So that
If human eyes were to look up
From the valley
Far below
They would see
The silhouette of a man
Illuminated by the fires
Of hell.
But human eyes would never see
This man.
The clothes the man wore
Slung across his back
Were the same the elk wore
When it was alive
The teeth the man wore
Around his neck
Were the same the bear wore
When it bared them at the man
For the last time.
There was a sense of Depth
(For that was his name);
Of unending
Space-like
Loneliness?
Not exactly…
Emptiness?
Not exactly…but closer
Which pervaded his very Being.
The man
Silhouetted by fire
Enshrouded by increasing dark
Smelled the flesh
Of the yearling he had killed
On the way to the cave.
The smell was his company
It made him feel
Not lonely.
It was enough.
And it was not enough.
Under hooded eyes
The man saw the last of the
Evidence
Of the sun
Sucked down greedily
By the mountain on the other side
Of the impossibly deep canyon
Out of which
He had breathlessly climbed.
Somewhere inside of himself
Something wilder than he
Gulped a deep, throaty
Lungful of air
And howled.
But Depth, the man
Was barely cognizant of the anguished howl
Of the thing inside him.
Instead, he removed something
From under his cloak;
It was a piece of cloth
A sash, dyed with blood-
The blood of a human-
And he looked at it.
There had been a woman, once
She had been his match in many ways
She had been greater than he in others.
For She heard things
Before he even knew
They existed;
A bird, a wolf, an oncoming storm…
For instance,
Depth would be walking like he did
On feet wrapped in many layers
To soften his step
With She next to him
Barefoot.
Depth would notice
That he was suddenly alone
And would look for She
With a degree of consternation.
And he would find her
Making a fire
And cutting branches for a shelter
Under a crystalline sky.
At first when this would happen
Depth would stand silently nearby
And frown.
But more than once
The sky opened
And fire flashed across
Great growling, boiling clouds
And water came from all directions
But not so much
In the shelter…
So Depth had been grateful
For her wisdom-
The wisdom of
She.
She had said that the Earth and the Sky
Told her things
Many times
That only a silent person
Could ever know.
Depth had often wondered what she meant
Since he seldom spoke
But he never heard
What She heard.
Now She was gone
And his thoughts raged
And tore.
Depth had wandered
For seventy three years
After the passing of She
Before he found the new cave.
He never saw another human being.
He ate roots and raw meat.
His voice descended into growls.
If he used it at all.
The whites of his eyes
Turned red.
His grey hair stood on end.
His scars ached
And multiplied.
The night he found the new cave
He lay down in it
And
Slept
Hard.
When he awoke, it was dark outside
And the fire was low
But it was light in the cave where he was.
In the light was She.
She said nothing
But waited for him
With her arms outstretched.
He felt peace for the first time.
Depth’s bones still lay in the new cave.
If you were to find them
You would see the teeth from the bear
And the teeth from the man
And you would find
Somehow preserved
The red sash
That had been dyed with her blood;
The blood
Of She.
--Eric Marley
October 2011
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