The Caveman’s Corner

Ode to “Neanderthal 1″

I wrote a poem. It’s beautiful.

‘O noble brow from Neander!
Fuhlrott knew thee first.
King would call thee neanderthalensis,
Huxley proclaim your worth.

You were another sort of man:
First among the fold.
You were the first appreciated,
Though other men might be as old.

Your ridges arch so handsomely,
Your form so gracefully bowled.
Your face we may not gaze upon.
But your neurocranium we do behold.

In the year of 1997,
Your age the C14 did show.
You stalked the forests of Germany,
Two score millennia ago.

So to you we tender a laurel,
Ancient Neanderthal!
Whose kind braved two-hundred-thousand winters,
Before ours saw one at all.