Primal
……….
“As early as 500 BC, if we credit the images on Greek pottery,
Homer and other poets were being read, not merely performed,
by individuals.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets,7
When poetry existed in the mind
And air and heart alone, with voice to speak
The words, the greatest poet could be blind.
The poet bore the Hebrew or the Greek
To ears around the flame for pot or heat
In rooms. The lines filled up the human space
Where ink was still unknown. Perhaps a bleat
From goat enclosures left a plaintive trace
Among the chanted verses, or a lyre
Would work between the syllables. The cave
Was once their realm, the shadowed cave and fire.
Quill meanings waited for some future nave.
..The people knew their poetry, its lines
….And tribal weight. They heard them in their spines.