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| Dover Beach |
We once thought mankind
Were the only tool makers
Until we found primates
Using twigs to get ants
Out of a log. We also
Thought we were the only
Word users and were knocked
Back on our heels when
First Koko the gorilla “spoke”
Of her sorrow that her pet
Kitten died, and later Kansi,
A bonobo, appeared on
Oprah to describe kale
As “slow-lettuce.” We
Have had to revise our
Notions about the origins
Of speech, thinking,
Animal consciousness.
I find it fascinating to hear
Jane Goodall speak of her
Life among the apes recalling
How they form families, groom
Each other, share food, fight for
Territories. There are other
Telling elements of the
Relationship of humans and
Animals. The idea of burial
Grounds as an early indicator
Of conscious thought in our
Primal forebears—in hints
That elephants, dolphins, and
Apes display “grieving” both
As individuals and groups
Encountering a corpse of their
Species. Recent discoveries
In South Africa of early
Hominids—their bones
Shorter than our own but
With skulls approximating
Our type—“burying” their
Dead in deep out-of-the-way
Caves suggests they
Had a notion of death,
A behavior for protecting
Their dead from vultures,
Hyenas, dismembering
A helpless one of their kind.
Darwin shook the Victorians
With his revolutionary ideas
Of our beginnings—for so many
Entertaining the thought of
Our certain creation in
The warm very human hands
Of a God who spoke to his
First conscious creature.
Then in the reading of a sentence
Creation was relaunched
With the lesser creatures.
It would be eons, not days,
Before anything like a man
Would walk the dirt of the
Earth. The search for the new
Adam, whom God had not
Touched with his hands nor
Breathed into him life, boldly
Began with no divine guide
In a Godless Eden.
But today we can connect
The links those scientists
Sought even though theorists
Contend it is all by chance
We appeared, have these
Gifts for words, art, and
Knowing. Yet at Dover Beach*
I would take Matthew Arnold
Aside, assure him the
Certainties that disappeared
Were dreadfully flawed, be
Glad they’re gone. Morn’s
Light confirms our beauty,
Our goodness, and our love.
c. J.S.Manista, 2016
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