Children's Game Poem by Laurence Overmire

In 1415 B.C., not so very long ago
A common ancestor of all modern-day humans
Walked this Earth
A great great - many times great - grandparent of us all
So it is said, by mathematical formula
Calculating migrations, the pairing of man and woman
Culture to culture, and continent to continent

So we return, in time
To ourselves, yet again
We are the builders of the pyramids
The setters of rune in ancient stone
We, the forgers of iron and bronze
We map the mountains and chart the seas
We, all of us, look and have looked, in wonder
The same starry sky remembering…

Yet in vanquished blood we spill our brother-sister
Hopes, year upon tortured year
How vain to think that we are right and he-she
Unlike us, and so like us, is all
Together

Wrong.

~ Laurence Overmire