Ten thousand years to write

A stick of burnt wood mashed in a stone cup
mixed to a thin paste with some cuckoo spit,
then draw scenes on hidden cave walls, high up,
those will last ten thousand years, within it.

Don't stop there, add china-clay and get gray,
or china-clay on its own and get white,
then the artist can picture night and day
and with flickering flame show birds in flight.

So electrifying to find such things
those reds and yellows right beneath their feet,
and it's from there, I see, that our art springs
and down ten thousand years, or more, we meet...

I've heard there's nothing new under this sun
Ten thousand years past, my write was begun?