inscribing meaning

inscribing meaning,
150,000 years back,
the original, Eve,
the ancestor of every human alive today

cave paintings on the Southern Cape,
two ochre engraved plaques that
had been inscribed with abstract geometric
designs approximately 75,000 years ago,

tracing the proliferation and mutation of these images,
in all their multifaceted vitality,
arguably our species' oldest work of art,
far and away the most compelling evidence
that art is at the core of who we are

contemporary international academics strategize
over these subterranean representations as
if they were coping mechanisms
for the upcoming apocalypse

the great western intellectual juggernaut is not in
any position to be suggesting modes of expression
to cultures that date back to the dawn of human
consciousness, especially when they are exquisite
and profoundly meaningful artifacts

give it a century, we'll see whose
paradigm survives for how long
and why our species makes art