So. Here’s this photo
Of a 2 million-year-old
Jawbone with a few toothy
Molars clinging to it.
Our common ancestor.
It looks like something ashy
Pulled out of the fireplace.
I remember the Leakeys
Having found another something
One hundred thirty thousand years old
In the Olduvai Gorge
Fifty years ago, and proclaimed
“Lucy” our very own
Primary Eve.
Two million?
We’ve been scrabbling
Around this planet
For two million years?
Grunting and sucking
And fucking and feeling pain
And still haven’t figured out
How to live together in peace?
What pre-historic monsters
Are we?
Sander Zulauf’s new books include: Where Time Goes (Dryad, 2014) and Basho in America (iUniverse, 2014). He is editor emeritus of the Journal of New Jersey Poets, and in 1999 he was appointed first poet laureate of the Episcopal Church in the Newark Diocese (Northern New Jersey) by Bishop John Shelby Spong. New work appears in the anthologies Palisades, Parkways and Pinelands and Howl of Sorrow, the 35th anniversary issue of Lips, Exit 13 Magazine (#22), Tiferet, and is forthcoming in the Paterson Literary Review and US 1. He is recipient of the Allen Ginsberg Award and seven Pushcart Prize nominations.
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