By Andrew R. Duckworth
People called him the cave man
And it fit; the man explored caves,
Always on the hunt
For lost pieces of our story,
Convinced he would find them
In the dark.
And, one day he found an altarpiece,
Stretching from floor to ceiling,
But, on further inspection,
Realized it was only
Stalagmite greeting stalactite.
One day, he could have sworn
He found cave paintings.
But they were only his hopes
Projected onto rock surface.
And then he found tools,
But they were just
The remnants of bats.
Of course, every now and then,
He would go into town,
Out in the light
He seemed to despise,
And he would be greeted by children,
All of them fascinated at the man
Who preferred to look
For answers in the dark.
One of them asked why he did it,
To which he replied
That if he only sought
What was in the light
He would never find what is hidden.
The child responded,
“Why do you assume
that anything is hidden?”
Poetry of Andrew Ryan Duckworth 