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

*