In Lebanon exists this ancient cave.

There man’s lost past has been paved.

A million flint pieces have been found,

lying in situ amongst layered cave ground.

The bottom layer is fifty thousand years old.

Just think of the history here that could unfold.

I want to hear the stories told here at night.

I wish to see the hunters in the cave’s firelight.

I imagine the countless chants sang in rhyme.

With more names than are days in my lifetime.

Names when heard today would have no meaning.

I want to experience the life they were feeling.

This cave has seen thousands of deaths and births,

from quite recently to the pre-glacial first.

The lost record of so many different men,

that my mind can hardly comprehend.

Many times the ice sheets advanced then thawed.

Were the inhabitants Cro-Magnon or Neanderthal?

It was their world, the prehistoric life

of cave people engaged in survival strife.

What thoughts formed in their early dreams,

on this globe unknown with unwalked streams?

Streams of uncaught fish and unfound gold,

the first of life only they would know.

I wish I could have been with those very first,

that wandered alone over this early earth.

I could see rolling storms move across darken skies

and walk deep grass plains and hear strange bird cries.

I would place my hand against the cool cave wall,

sensing glacial winds and hearing the dire wolf call.

I want to hear stories of the hunt, the stories of stone,

and see flint points scattered amongst mammoth bone.

Did they leave some kind of message here?

Perhaps it would tell of their rites and fears.

So many souls here have lived and died.

I can’t fathom it, although how I’ve tried.

Now maybe by being here if just one night

and sleep among memories buried out of sight.

I could huddle alone, flint ax in one hand,

a spear in the other, I can be a cave man.

And by being here that night I would find

a portal to the thoughts of the prehistoric mind.

With fearful sleep, I leave the present behind,

awakening, to see the sun rise, for the first time.