There would be a choice on whom to save:
those who walk upright outside the cave,
or those who worship fire from within.
Take a look to see who is your kin.
From afar explosions look like smoke.
But, up close, appear more as God’s joke.
Blood and blast meld into paint:
those who were and now who ain’t.
Rivers run and lands are farmed.
Some not dead are only harmed.
Genes and schemes are passed on down.
Here’s a village. There’s a town.
Families, alas, survive.
May be yours, if you’re alive.
These eternal mysteries
come to us as histories.
Those who had successful plans
band together, then, as clans.
Bloodlines are a map of time,
shaped by reason, steeped in rhyme.
Sometimes fate can be quite cruel.
That is why it’s called old school.
Paintings, tales and songs survive.
Nothing else can stay alive.
Those who seek to trace the past
are but watchmen on the mast.
Waves of people hit the shore.
Some are players, some keep score.
All wind up as dust or bones.
Check that on your telephones.
