Reaching through the paint       In Spain where the giant caves wait, I listened for the ghost painters through black, twisting veins that led to the large cavern in Altimira. They were silent. Time had brushed away those Cro-Magnon artists with a single stroke.   My lantern flashed across stone walls freeing creatures left behind. They reared and pranced so loudly I was deafened by their presence. Huge ochre horses mastered the stone on pointed feet flicking black manes and tails. These golden goddesses preened in the dark. Burnt-red deer leaped through shadows and cracks. They wielded racks of black horns like ancient switchblades threatening a predator. Rays of light washed across gigantic bison with fur hanging in shaggy clumps. Eyes were anchored with flecks of ochre smoldering beneath hairy foreheads.   I walked to the opening of the cave and paused to survey the landscape below. A far-away farmer had plowed rows in the shade of Lombardy poplars. Horses were stopped for a moment's rest. White goats and cows grazed on the hillsides beside the Bay of Biscay.   I clutched the rough entrance with one hand and then stretched through space to touch that living farm and valley. For one instance I was a human bridge connecting three hundred centuries with time rushing through me like a stiff mountain breeze blowing my shirttail. All life seemed somehow reduced to a small space where man and creatures still stood in awe, or In reverence, of each other.       ©2007 Catherine Moran