in the heart of the cave

A presence revealed by pleasure. Each creature here is at home in man..They are making a single sign, and they are dancing in a circle to make this sign..They were for the dark. They were hidden in the dark so that what they embodied would outlast everything visible.
--John Berger.

A hand, a smile, a sign. The sign. Of your presence. But a sign is sign of what isn't here, but there.
The name that names least is the name.

Crow asked Man what it was like to live in a cave, all alone?

You tell me, replied Man.

But the cold, the absence of light, the waiting for the sun over the horizon... how can that be endured, asked the dark one.

Yearning makes the heart grow deeper. In the darkness we do not look for footprints, but summon all our strength and wait attentively so that what was lost may be found again, and again.

Crow was exasperated: You're such a strange one, poor Man. Don't you miss the open, don't you dream of other lives, other realities? Have you no desire to break out of the circle?

You ask so many questions, dear Crow! Here, in the heart of the cave we see many things, dream much, and make many long and arduous journeys. Here, in the inside city there are many strange, exotic, and wondrous places. And is it not said:

We find God everywhere in the world, seeing in material things the spiritual reality which is beyond them. For the spiritual and the holy we are to look at toward all the world, not toward our isolated self-will.

Crow could not fathom man's words: You speak with such a twisted tongue my friend and it saddens me to think of you down here, afraid and unknown.

The man laughed and Crow flew away.

Crow, you are like a black sun, soaring above the real world, with the essence of man in your heart, your flight in the white sky like a stroke of black ink from one of my brushes.

And with that Man, sad at the thought that his friend had left him, took out his knife and carved an image of the crow into the heart of the cave.

You shall always be far from me, beloved Crow. But you shall always be near as well.