3703. ARCHIVAL RETRIEVAL

ARCHIVAL RETRIEVAL

And all the rest little mattered at all  -  those

cave man paintings at Lascaux, useless once we

got to them  -  steeped in soot from 18th century

candles and torches and, once cleaned, gone.

History is a void, like consciousness tries to be.

I swore, myself, there was a leopard or two in

there, still prowling around. Well, okay then,

not leopard, sabre-toothed tiger, or whatever:

the kind of thing that takes off legs, that never

co-existed with Mankind, that these people never

saw nor hunted nor painted. I don't know what's up;

history's a void, like consciousness tries to be.