ODubslaine
Each flower bends
Before his tender heart.
The smallest bud
Notes the shadow
His long gait
Makes
Across their blooming.
Only by his own ways
Is he their kin.
For the world is not
A place for gentle men.
Sombre
May 21, 2017
Dear Ardi
Dear Ardi
forgive me
for being so familiar
not addressing you
properly with your full name
Ardipithecus Ramidus
but I recently
learned
to my elation
we’re related,
though distantly
by 4.4 million years
I feel the urge
to thank you for
courageously
taking the leap
bestowing history
on the ground
by
walking upright.
There
in the Afar desert
of Ethiopia
woodlands in your time
lying crushed
in your fossil bed
snuggling against
snake and scorpion
your frame under
hyena footprints
defying flashfloods
and dust tornadoes
you slept
undetected
only two palm bones
outstretched
to welcome science.
Dear Ardi,
you enter my world
in tiny fragments:
your skull
wherein you figured
how to go from tree
to ground
your teeth
once chewing
tasty critters
your hands
bending backward
at the wrist
to hold up a newborn
for all the knuckle-walkers
to envy.
Your arms, legs and feet
125 brittle bones
encased in silty clay :
once actors for life
for survival.
How keen you were
to choose a hands-free
walking man
for life on the ground!
You taught him
to be social
cooperative
caring for the wee Ardis
he dared not boss you around
as you dropped to the ground
to shop for hackberries
plants and eggs.
In your nest of branches and leaves
escaping creeps
you counted on
your opposable big toe
to grasp branches
pluck fruit
grab sleep
to win another day.
Did your forebears
tell you stories of Toumai
or the tale of the
Millennium Man?
Did they transfer
the secret of
balancing on two feet?
Did Kadabba
whisper what was to come?
What prompted you
to fashion a new posture
and fancy a gait
through the fig trees
alongside surprised monkeys
antelopes and peafowl ?
Homo Sapiens
smart alecks
predators of our own kind
call you hominid.
At four feet and muscular
weighing in at 110 pounds
with hips and thighs
to kill for
negotiating an original
style of motion
You, my sister, I name
The Woman of Middle Awash,
neither chimp nor gorilla
but
every woman
and
darling ancestor of mine.
Siobhán Ó Mócháin Breathnach
February 23, 2010
