Peche-Merle, France

Spotted horses depicted

On cave walls

Are riderless,

Disembodied hands

Rise over dappled

Flanks;

Burnt-bone pigments

Blown through reeds,

Fix gestures eternally--

Hands reach for equine

Belly,

Touch muzzle,

Crest backbone.

The mural's territory

Is dotted with aerosolized

Bursts--

Denoting continuum

Between beings.

It's now believed the palms

Are feminine hands:

Women navigated caves,

Ground red ochre,

Pounded carbonized matter,

Noticed rock outcropping

Mirroring a mare's head, neck

And chest.

As artists painted

Their limestone chamber,

They overlapped the horses,

Because they recalled herds

Grazing in sunlit world.

And then women emerged

From stoney entrails, befriended

Their subject matter,

               And rode, rode, away--

Laura Stickney 2025

Notes:

Peche Merle is a cave in France.

It houses paintings at least 29,000

years old.

Peche Merle paintings contain negative

hand stencils made my blowing paint

around an actual hand placed against 

rock wall.

Red ochre, iron oxide, is an intense 

red orange color.