In the Bowels of the Lower Cave

In the Bowels of the Lower Cave

at Gargas, Abbé Breuil took photographs
of the engravings illuminated
from his left. He figured a fragment, the

forelegs of a horse, their feathering scored
dexterously on bright rock, unshadowed
by the hand using the burin. Twenty

years later the Easthams sensed the pressures
better done by a left hand, and moved their
lamp across. Then, manifest at once, less

deeply cut but a complete conception,
the whole horse stirred to take possession of
its legs. At Ekain, Bison Fourteen is

sane and sound, provided the source of light
is four feet from the surface, four feet from
the floor and twenty inches left of your
...