cave lion cubs

Photo by Tuesday Temptation on Pexels

the frozen lion cubs were found resting in the permafrost 
and they revealed many clues about their mighty pride 
 — legends of their foremothers and forefathers 
scrawled as blood-shadow silhouettes on the broad-faced 
rock wall of their eternal caves 
the epic cats of long ago inspired holy awe in our 
cro-magnon cousins and our neanderthal friends — 
the heavy-browed flower people, with their light pigments 
and their clumsy tools, their barrel chests 
and their buried dead… 
even the landslide could not stifle you — I hear your 
little roars, you baby lion cubs — you echo 
through the centuries, speaking brutal truths that fill 
my horror-soaked genetic dreams and make me wonder 
what it all must have been like…back then, 
to be among the early men and the early women, the 
survivors of chaos — facing fears incessantly 
and still finding time in between fighting to stay alive 
to create and invent and imagine,
to share the ideas in their heads with one another, 
to speak, to sing, to hope, to believe, and to strive 
so that like the lions, their animal line might never die

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Garbage Notes:

This one was based on a story I found—maybe around last year or something—about this near-perfect cave lion cub found in permafrost in Siberia. They estimated it to be over 30,000 years old. It was so well-preserved you could even see her whiskers.

Sparta is what they named her. The cub is from a species of lion that went extinct about 10,000 years ago. And, well, now she lives again in this poem!

This is just one of numerous examples of a sort of pre-historic inspired poem that I sometimes like to write. I have a bit of a fascination with early hominids and the times in which they lived. So naturally, imagining a cave-lion living 30 thousand years ago, sparks all these imaginative thoughts about, well, what else was there in that cave? Were there humans around?

We’re told that Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens hunted cave lions. But in my wild speculative fantasies, they were sometimes friends, sharing the caves, protecting each other. I know it sounds ridiculous, but imagine instead of a little house cat purring in your lap, you have a giant cave lion protecting all your shit and falling asleep next to you? How fun would that be?

I know, it’s much more likely that the cave lions wanted to bite our heads off because they were fucking hungry in those dark, freezing caves. But how can we be sure? Right? haha... Anyway… I like the last part where I highlighted the words create, invent, and imagine.

Why did I highlight these words? Because I think it’s interesting that no matter how scary and horrific it must have been back then, it’s likely that our hominid ancestors still found time to do more than just survive. Cave art, and tool making, elaborate burial artifacts and cultural rituals point to the idea that these folks were probably as inventive and creative as we are.

They probably shared stories, huddled up together in intimate spaces, made things together, and shared all their passions, concerns, and fears with one another. Whether they did it an a language we would recognize is another story, but the cognitive and emotional capacity was there.

These beings were all as human as we are today. And it wouldn’t be too outrageous to speculate that the majestic cave lion was perhaps a symbol of strength, power, courage and persistence—just as it is now.

Lastly, the reference to “flower people” in the poem and the associated lines were inspired by the depictions of Neanderthals in the novel Dance of the Tiger by Björn Kurtén. I was reading it at the time and was really intrigued by how the author contrasted the two human species and the sensitive ways in which the author wrote about the potentially more mild-mannered, pacifist, and creative-minded Neanderthals as opposed to the more fierce and warlike Homo sapiens.

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Franco Amati 2023