18,000 years ago
my ancestors burned
bones and hematite
in the Lascaux caves.
Equines and stags mid gallop
on walls of calcite.
I imagine them gathering
in their own blackness.
As a boy I thought
brown and black
were stalked by death.
I try to imagine
the 17,000 years
Lascaux were left
alone in darkness.
If you read about the caves,
historians will say
they were discovered in 1940.
55 years later on my first
day of kindergarten,
a girl said hi to me
and I hid behind Mama.
She’s black and fat I said.
When I look up
the definition for black,
I find fifteen entries
with negative associations.
Black holes burn
at billionths of a Kelvin;
astronomers say that makes
them ideal black bodies
since they are impossible to observe.
Unfinished steel is said to be black.
When I look in the mirror
I feel shame for my six year old self,
much of me is unfinished.
Soil that flooded the Nile
was said to be black,
which meant glorious and fertile.
I know the awe of blackness.
The night sky marveling
in hope of the infinite.
Galaxies drift
in a blackness greater
than our understanding.
I think of Mama pouring
molasses by the spoonful
in her ginger snap cookies.
She’d let me have a spoon
after she was done with the batter.
The mineral taste almost iron.
