In the darkness of the night,
a camp fire glows, yellow, orange, bright.
Around it sit people who we now describe
as together having formed a tribe,
and as they roast their latest ****,
enough this time to eat their fill.
The father figure of them all
begins to reminisce, yes, to recall
stories of great deeds that he
has stored within the recesses of his memory.
And through passing millennia it was thus done
tribal histories passed from father to son,
until the populations of tribes had grown,
and many different stories had come to be known.
Then there came the great idea to draw
depictions of what each day they saw,
when hunting the animals they needed to stay alive
they recorded each species which then, did thrive,
painted on cave roof and wall,
wondrous visions which still enthrall.
Change came slowly from this time, and
populations moved to find new land,
so they could ensure their survival,
by looking for space without any rival
tribes competing for scarce resources,
life was hard with Mother Nature's forces
stacked against this new species, who,
compared to Earth's history, was almost brand new.
Successful tribes began to grow,
and with life experience they came to know
that the hunter gatherer way of living,
was particularly hard, and unforgiving,
and that for their populations to expand
they had to find new ways to exploit the land.
So from this point change came faster,
sometimes punctuated by a natural disaster,
but change it did, and before too long
they built settlements that were big, and strong,
on land from which they now knew
the kind of crops from the soil best grew.
Agriculture now became widespread,
and meant that many more could be fed.
Much time for many was now freed
so towns grew larger, and so the need
for new things that now could be made,
so with food surplus came growth in trade,
as goods manufacture added worth,
sold to townsfolk who did not till the earth.
As trading increased with other tribes
there grew a need for new ways to inscribe
the dealings that took place each day,
to make sure buyers did the sellers pay.
This led to development from pictorial depiction
to the earliest forms of inscription,
stone and clay tablets were at first employed,
and the new middle classes now enjoyed
the great advances these changes brought,
as written language could now be taught.
Then tribal history, once passed paternally,
could now be written, and shared with all, eternally,
and legends from the peoples darkest past
could be written in stone or clay to last,
down through the ages they could now be read,
long after the ones who wrote these words were dead.
This has meant that in our so called modern times,
we have seen the commission of unspeakable crimes,
because generations of 'scholars'have read ancient scrolls,
and accepted as literal truth, what there unfolds.
So here we are in these "enlightened" times
still blaming an imaginary friend for our crimes,
instead of understanding what is clear,
and abandoning such illogical fear
by accepting that all such superstitious "glories"
were merely created as tribal camp fire stories.
Tom Higgins.