In Wisconsin, We Remember Traveling Southwest France

The same crescent moon rising in Madison
          rose in the hand of the Neolithic Venus of Laussel.
We too have our rock art, broken off and sold in flea markets.
          Deep in Grotte de Ruffignac we saw shallow beds
the cave bears dug—thousands of nests, one a year,
          50,000 years ago. They woke to sharpen
parallel claw marks in the dark. Here, our mammoth tusks,
          dug up, show the pits of meteor dust.
There we ate stuffed goose necks, blood pudding,
          prune digestif, walnut wine at Madame Veyret’s—
here the roasted parsnips, burdock, beets, cider for sweet.
          Whatever we do, or don’t do, in this world, something
will survive—scratches after long sleep, a recipe, a figurine, a husk.