We
shun golden smiles and tans of tourist
towns
and beaches, glide our slender sailboat
past
Monaco
short of Menton, and twist
our
slow way above azure bay on foot
to
Grotte du Vallonnet, found by a girl
in ’58 who sought calcite for cheap
jewelry rather than gunsights. Ancient world
of creek and cave opens to room with heaped
pudding walls and sand-sediment flooring.
We gaze and breathe in Jurassic air, sense
growling presence of bear, sharp grating sting
of saber-tooth. Love, we exist in tense
lives
a million years past, a million years
hence,
don’t we? Melding all laughter and tears?
Roger Armbrust
June 24, 2012
