for Countless Millennia
we Chewed our way
through the day
*
hundreds of thousands of years
we lived a life
centered
on masticating, sleeping
and mating
*
our Formidable
remaining jaws
show Powerful Teeth
designed to break down
bark, tubers and grasses
for Hours
*
our skulls
Smaller
suggest an undersized brain
too busy Chewing
*
A Shift Occurred
*
that Formidable jaw
Retracts
resembling what we have now
Simultaneously
our skull’s cavity
Expands
allowing our brains
to increase threefold
*
by the size of our diminished jaw
and larger crown
it Appears
we have discovered
Meat
and the application of Fire
resulting
in Cooked Fare
*
Metabolizing
half digested food
and spending less of our day Chewing
Equals
gaining many more calories for time spent eating
*
Gives Us So Much More
Bang for our Buck
*
Consequently,
Our Brains,
Such Hungry Organs,
Evolve Voraciously
*
we begin Envisioning
a future, a past,
even the Sacred
*
That Moment
when the Lion
became an Image
of Power and Dignity
the Sky
a benevolent Father
the Earth
a Mother
whose Law must be heeded
lest we suffer
her Retribution
*
That Moment
was the Hour
of Our Becoming
when
unlike any other living being
we began Speaking
a language of Symbols
depicting the Imaginary
the Allegorical
and the Metaphysical
superimposing
Humans and Nature
*
self reflective
we Became what we Are
*
the Symbolic Species
*