A note from Dr. Hendrix
This poem travels from Jim Morrison’s grave in Paris to the painted walls of the Lascaux caves — two places where I stood in genuine awe. I wrote it because now and then art, whether a rock lyric or a seventeen-thousand-year-old painting, stops you cold and reminds you what it is to be human.
When the music’s over
Turn out the lights
I was in a Paris graveyard
I saw the Argentine rugby team
Looking down at a grave.
Please,
Why are you looking at this grave?
Please,
Jim Morrison, one whispered, as he knelt down on both knees
I stepped into the cave at Lascaux, France
And looked up at the light on the wall
In awe
I could not believe what I saw
The most beautiful art of all
I ever saw
I heard Picasso say
I too was in the cave at Lascaux one day
And saw the same paintings that I saw
In the cave
That day
He said,
The greatest art of all
He ever saw
He painted what he saw
On the wall
He painted that bull that was on the wall
He painted
Many bulls
Just like the bull he saw on the wall
I saw my wife at the bottom of the hill
Trimming and shaping the bushes
Around the boulders at the bottom of the hill
At the middle of the hill
I saw her do the same
And the same on top of the hill
Our home is on the hill
I look out in every direction
The hill is alive in every direction
It is now a beautiful hill
Every night I go down stairs
To turn out the lights
I don’t turn out the lights
There’s so much beauty on the wall
My wife says
Please turn out the lights
I say, look how beautiful
You’ve made our wall
All the art that’s on the wall