My worst closed until further notice experience was Altamira
from Santander where we waited three days to get in the country
after militant Basques assassinated a general through blistering
heat on empty roads in one end of Madrid and out the other
all the way to Seville to create the felt covered wine red stage
for the acquisition of Sandeman Port all the while Altamira
was on my mind first I got Montezuma’s Revenge then my
partner who laid low in a hotel back in Santander while I
took the 20 foot scenery lorry winding through the countryside
to the site where years before a little girl had stumbled upon
the entrance to the cave Bison Papa! she shouted I so wanted
to see what she saw but a dark green steel door said otherwise
leaving me to seek out the tourist shop and buy books and cards
about the cave and its paintings poor compensation for being
denied entrance hungry for something to make up for the injustice
I took a branch of eucalyptus from the cave’s locale eucalyptus
that came alive with the scent of compassion in the lorry
and stayed with me till its oils finally dried out an ocean
and a continent later the depths of the cave would have to wait
although my imagination stayed on heedless on the ferry home
I looked out at the cold mean waters of the Bay of Biscay
but something in me had woken up and lingered there
in northern Spain I don’t know why I felt so pulled
to that place to the memory of painting images of animals
underground how one bison’s bulk emerged from the surface
of the ceiling! I saw in photographs how formations
suggested shapes of creatures to the artists’ minds
we can say they were seers bringing their light
to the subterranean passageways that gave up
their walls and canopies in ways that long
preceded Plato’s Allegory I can’t say “this
is what we do” I can only say “this is what
a few of us do” and we would do well
to listen and learn for we are too bound up
in the snares of those who hunt and trap
our desires only to sell our own souls
on the marketplace I like to think I was
good with the closed door that I understood
enough is enough that my breath alone
would decay further the work once hidden
for thousands of years not everything should be
plain understood so I went home and now
they’re grown the seeds of my imagination
come to life and my wife who waited
well perhaps she’s there what’s a lifetime
pass when you’ve passed from this life?
Nothing’s closed to her now while my imagination
is still out there hungry to be allowed in
kohalamichael 