Dancing Neanderthal
Stronger muscles than ours;
Sharper tools –
Could speak?
Possibly.
Write?
Didn’t. Unless with sharp
stones
they incised their skins
that would die with them,
observing
the ban on lasting records.
Traffic in symbols? Paint on
rocks?
Couldn’t?
Didn’t. May have been
foresight and hard taboo
to stop themselves inventing
religion, football or flags.
Our world’s ways of life
keep strong by prohibitions;
and they may just have been
better than us at that, as
they no doubt were
at contemplating extinction.
They could have danced?
All night, with that much
muscle.
Sung?
No reason why not.
Hard wired to diatonic?
Roy Fisher, Standard Midland (Tarset: Bloodaxe Books, 2010), 32-3.
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