Ancestors

Homo Habilis: Hello Mother, Hello Father.

Homo Habilis, Noah's Ark was your skull.  

How the waters chased you 

and the desert absorbed your desiccated children

as you made your way across history

millions of years ago,

your brain growing fertile on meat and marrow,

your fingers nimble as Michelangelo's, until you stood

in the great arc of the valley's northern ridge, 

and sucked the bones of your sacrifice,

and marched toward the North

and your future, you wily child splashed in survivors' covenants,

you father and mother standing upright before God,

sly as the escaping snake, and watching the valley die

with the raven and crow only to sing it to sleep.