Ajani is the Persistence of Image: Poem

Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash

Ajani is painted with hollow eyes
Earth and blood on plateaued canvas
Surrounded by prone figures without
Arms or legs
Beneath a mound where torsos
Divested of limbs are
Yet undiscovered

She is scratched into rock varnish,
A distant geoglyph
Enrobed by unusual bacteria
Distinct from the artistic lineage
Below the touch of
a thousand red blown hands
Painted in frantic warning.

Ajani is three elegant strokes
A sweep of silken calligraphy.
A brittle scroll, edged
With ivory from an extinct beast.
The artist’s name is veiled
Centuries later
Defaced with a splatter of blood.

She is an ornate character,
On a tightly rolled scripture
Crossed over with curses
In a lost language.
Buried in the caves
With prayers that she will never again
Visit the desolate settlement.