Can We Rise? Poem by Tom Courtney

Can we rise
from scratching on the wall
in smoky caves
with charcoal images
some portraying life
pictures showing death?

Songs of a man emerging
hands now taking to berry dye
to say with feelings
what words cannot express
from man comes his self-aggrandizement
his ignorance and his inspiration?

Can we rise
through the slow grinding of time
from pits in the earth
to the angles of thinkers
the open spaces of architects
the smooth faces of marble
and the idea of man?