Human Animal 

I used to think we were related to angels,
fourth cousin third removed, or something like it.
I’ve danced on the head of a pin with the best of them,
feeling blessed, feeling special and on top.

I even claimed Lucifer as my relative,
rather enjoying his descent – for we all love a sinner,
a bad boy, a bad girl. Don’t we?

But the story feels stale to me now,
the plump golden babes seem gaudy and sickly to me.
Irrelevant to the answers we obsessively seek –

some looking for God and some for the Genome Organising Device.
While all the time we’re living in the patterns
and recipes we share: geometry and numbers,
hexagonal dancing molecules working the rolling boil of water.

And we ask: Who did it? How? What for?
Questions so human, so important to us.

And from our constant enquiring we’ve learnt
that our closest relatives are chimpanzees, not angels.
And there’s a measly percentage of special human DNA
that bathes us, and clothes us, and gives us our place.

Get used to it animal. Get used to it fast.
For with big brain, in front, on top,
we have transformed ourselves from prey to predator,
and we who know best eat too much, greedy with our need –
extinction follows us like a virus.

So now we have moved thoroughly into our home
we could embrace our neighbour not as we have embraced
the globe; and we may be mindful to remember
that the human animal can cooperate, empathise, live alongside.
And this has become imperative.

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