Ashes

It looked at me with the eyes of a primate,
elemental being,
hominid with wrinkled skin
at the dawn of prehistory.
It watched me bury ashes
of preterit man
without incense or urn.
Hanging from lianas between trees,
a botched Tarzan
never imagined by E.R. Burroughs.
It leapt across creeks
In the dense jungle.
Echoes of roars in the distance,
brutal, archaic eyes.
I’m free of past phantoms
of my childish imagination.