One Face in Charcoal
On cave walls marked by ash and ancient fire
My face emerged before the birth of words
A shadow learned to stand against the dark.
Hands shook as charcoal traced a living form
No name was known, no future yet conceived
The face existed only to endure.
The firelight bent my features into time
Each flicker changed the meaning of the face
The wall became the first remembered mind.
From stone to clay my face began to harden
It wore the weight of gods and mortal kings
Belief engraved its power in the brow.
Gold crowned the eyes, and laws shaped silent lips
The face learned how to command and rule
It spoke for nations, never for itself.
Paint taught the face to pause inside a frame
History asked it not to breathe or change
Stillness became the proof that it was real.
One day the glass returned my gaze to me
The face turned inward, startled by its form
For once it asked what truth it truly held.
No god looked back, no crown, no borrowed role
Only a self unguarded by design
The face began to fracture into thought.
Doubt carved new lines more deeply than time did
The eyes grew heavy with unsolved questions
Identity became a fragile skin.
The camera seized the face and froze its breath
The moving image taught the face to act
Expression learned to lie with perfect ease.
Screens multiplied my image endlessly
Each version wore a different borrowed mood
The face became a tool of constant change.
One smile sold joy, another masked despair
The face was edited to earn belief
Truth blurred beneath the pressure to be seen.
Yet underneath the light of modern glare
The ancient shadow waits without a voice
Unfiltered, rough, and patient as before.
Inside the mind a cave still holds its wall
And there the charcoal face remains unchanged
It watches silently across all time.
Though tools evolve and centuries collapse
The face endures as record and as wound
The oldest poem humans never end.
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment