Friday 4 October 2013

Acknowledging the Lizard and the Chimp.

We are not merely animals and yet,
To be a human being is not to reason
And to calculate alone.
A vet will recognise within us that same thrust
Which is the life force in all creatures.
Our minds, as well, contain this strange thing, intuition,
Which we might seem to disregard,
And yet cannot. It plays its part,
Silently, and helps to season
What we like to think is rational decision.
The features of the human mask the beast,
Evolution reached fruition, we became a sane
And wondrous thing,
And so we feel we should forget that still within us
Lie qualities we cannot yet explain.
And some of us imagine a division
Between these aspects of our human nature
And those which yet remain
From some primordial, less developed time.
But no such separation can occur. Our brains,
Between the reptile and the human interlink,
And though we hold our cerebral cortex
In great high regard, the tide,
The whizzing, whirling vortex,
Which is the spinning of the mind, in thought,
Shows the monkey and the lizard lurk inside,
Flicking their tongues, and testing the air,
Picking the fleas from their hair or fur,
What they add to the process may well only distort,
But they temper the rational when we think.

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