With scrunched and bushy furrowed brow
   I ponder precise circumstances  
   when consciousness got born
Tracing back lineage of self,
   an arbitrary individual unpredictable as the Dow
   Reckoning series of events
   sustained life similar to sowing seed of corn

Ruminating fragile nascent organisms
   at mercy of fate flourished, and how
   Taxing me mind asper each score
   composed bards to toot their own horn
Aware just slightest off beat fluke

   determined from millennia ago or now
   That particular organism,
   whether one celled entity
   or beings that can mourn,
The loss of kindred members –

   food for thought since pledging marital vow
   this poet, whose presence
   a fluke of circumstances possibly torn
At any point in distant past
   rendering me absent unable to utter wow

At what crapshoot of circumstances
   wrought Matthew Scott Harris to be
   Cognizant of genealogy
   wove World Wide Web
   following threads back in time

Albeit not more than a couple generations –
   whereby emigrants did flee
   From supposed eastern European swath
   in general finding reason to rhyme

For no reason, just as other creatures
   great or small occupy themselves with glee
   Or just groveling along at
   bare ***** knuckle existence without a dime

Less apt to own luxury how **** sapiens
   purportedly evolved from mon-key
   Whereby harsh ill fate tempts them
   into life of crime
When perhaps riches with kingly figures
   loomed large in family tree

Branching back in the day
   Glorious personalities
   populated genealogy to boot
Twisting tortured destiny somewhere
   in one direction along the killer highway

   Setting stage for rags,
   when august ancestry buried in loot
Yet tis quite frivolous
   bemoaning present woes or even pray

   To win lottery turning attention
   how our ancestral gingko or newt
Dwelt in rich primordial egg drop soup
   wantonly in massive bay

   Inexorably transformed
   (by dint of dice throw) per flora to take root
As well fauna to mutate into species
   and genus on land to assay

Giving rise to variety to an assortment
   of animals and plants
And this one speck of flotsam
   in particular owns a passion for contra dance

Whereby others –
   from massive beasts to self taught amazing ants
Scurry hither and yon to and fro perhaps  
   contemplating genetic grants
To be alive for mere blink of an eye
   all due (in my view) to chance.