On your birthday, Charles Darwin, answer me this,
How is it that membrane becomes a skin
And whiskers bud from it
And glands evolve within?
And how is it the slithering worm
Sprouts fins then stumps and flippers
To quit the deep and waddle up and down the scree?
And what selects a folded cortex
Complexing ever more
To advantage the organism
O'er those which came before?

So, you two hundred ten today
In wondering reason begged
To explain away which had come first
The chicken or the egg.

You said it's about selection
Which leads to genesis
Of traits that favor fitness
Breeding that instead of this.

And wish that I could ask you
What spark of thought aflame
Kindled tindered theory
Which still burns and bears your name?

And one more simple question,
Charles Darwin, if I may.
Since the pastoral economy
Of meat and grass and milk
Eclipsed the hunter-gatherers
And the others of that ilk,
Among these things, Charles Darwin,
All those things you guessed,
Which came first, Charles Darwin,
...the baby or the breast?