Hisstory
Today is the birthday of that
long gone soul. The one spinning
in the centrifuge, even now,
on the counter, as the technician
in the lab coat pulls seven G's
worth of DNA from calcified skull,
in an effort to know what might
have been on the mind of the
Neanderthal still hanging around,
after all these years.
Before Julius Caesar and way before
Pope Gregory, notioned that any day
might be different from any other,
he woke up around sunrise, quietly
rolled to upright and looked about
the dimly lit space.
Perhaps he saw the female lying there
who had brought forth a baby,
now lying there with her, a young male,
a child of perhaps seven seasons,
extending the lineage a bit further,
the trek, apparently a bit longer now.
It's a cold morning, really cold,
and he goes to see what's left of
the fire from last night. Barely a
wisp of smoke to mix with the early
morning icy mist all around.
Thinking about what might be gotten
for the few in his group from this hidden
day he returns to her and his spear.
Her eyes open and he motions to be quiet.
The meal may be just beyond their camp.
Quietly his slips into the dewy mist.
He didn't have any notion of
wider questions, of glaciations or,
distant global warmings, DNA inheritance,
species encapsulation, or lyrical
language structure and etymology,
he only wanted to find a meal, to
provide, and stay alive another day.
Yet perhaps he had deeper, more
cerebral notions, about the beauty of
the drops hanging from the pine needles,
and the bent image within them. Perhaps
he heard the early morning calls of
robins or sparrows, and smelled the
trailing smoke of yesterday's fire mixing
with the scents of the season's flowers.
It's all about history, his story,
that we yearn to hear, after
forty-nine thousand years or more.
To hear his heart, to bare his soul
through those mists of time, to now.
To be reassured, that our story, it's
character, it's plot, comes from
ancient roots, ancient tradition,
ancient emotion, ancient love - of life.
© Goode Guy 2013-05-20
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_extinction_hypotheses
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_Genome_Project
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOXP2
Copyright © Goode Guy | Year Posted 2013
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