Jacek Kaczmarski - Prapradziadek

In the dying hearth
a spark sizzles.
Great-grandfather's eyes shine with
bloodthirsty fire.

Sure-footed, he progresses toward the sleeping forms,
After a victim.
Behind him, in the darkness, lurks my
great-grand-tribe.

At a signal, he raises a length of staff
into the dark sky,
And strikes with all his might - where needed.
He kills.

In the encampment lined with black night,
Fires are burning.
My great-grandfather's gaze glitters with
gluttonous desires.

He cuts the torso of the man with a
chipped flint.
The choice offal
he grills on the flame.
He waits 'til the true blood
burns his fingers,
He brings the smoking morsel to his face.
He consumes.

In the dying hearth
something still hisses.
My great-grandfather's gaze shines
with flashes of magic.
He puffs out his cheeks,
He blows into the ashes
as though inspired.
With both hands he digs
into the charred bones.

The rapture of danger
does not let him sleep.
He spreads grease on the rock
with his finger.
He creates.

Something moves in the den of
animal fur.
A bare calf flashes at my great-grandfather
with temptation.
A great-grand-shudder shatters his whole image
of the world.
He grabs, he takes, he extends the species.

A sudden flash of the glowing embers
widens his pupils.
In the nothingness where something comes alive,
In the nothingness where something comes alive,
In the nothingness where something comes alive,
He believes (his belief is born).