The artifact was unearthed,
Carbon tested,
Imagine:
Twenty thousand years old,
Dubbed the “Venus of Willendorf”
By the archaeologists supervising the dig
In reference to the Roman Goddess of Love
Breasts pendulous
No virginal pertness
The belly swollen
Burgeoning life within
Not a maiden’s firm form
But a body of many birthings
Her breasts nurturing, abundant sucklings
Rooting pink lips groping for life from swollen nipples
But born in a dark cold season
The tribe, cave-bound, the herds deep
In hibernal slumber, mammoth, bison, elk
Carcasses rotting in dense snowdrifts
Unable to unearth with frantic paw
The few patches of grasses under the snow
Implacable, the winter’s Hunger,
Newborns exposed on the mountainside
To succumb to the elements as Nature deems fit
Or if fate bestows found by a she-wolf
The child allowed to suckle
Running wild with the pack
Unknowing of human origins
The Goddess does what she can but
She is body alone
Face and head featureless
Limbs, squat and stubby,
Spacious, supple hips push forth new life
Copious breasts, prodigious womb
Her face vacant
Portals of sensory experience lacking
No ears to hear plaintive cries
No lips to utter tender words
No eyes to see into a pleading gaze
Of a singular, vulnerable child