Sasquatch
Marc Imlay
I live 62 miles from Ape Cave.
A site from which Big Foot reports came.
A large, primitive ape-like man
who modernity doesn’t understand.
Most believe him a gentle recluse
that for the modern world has no use.
Content to live primitively in forest hidden
avoiding any modern human collision.
Confused and overwhelmed by technology
and the life of the busy bee
of crowded cities and industry
hiding and hoping we’ll let them be.
I wonder, of us, what they think?
Creating an air about us that toxically stinks.
Devouring everything around which we stand
like a plague of locusts on the land.
Most only get a tantalizing glimpse
or impressions of huge footprints.
Some just like the reprieve
of something easier than religion to believe.
Some believe them to be a hoax.
Others treat them like whimsical jokes.
A few think they just might be
and try to prove it scientifically.
There are many scientific examples
of various species samples
that are for most purposes extinct
yet still are found in small pockets distinct.
For example, I once saw a wolverine.
A species no one else I know has seen.
So to most, wolverine is a myth,
no personal experience to prove it exists.
If someone found Sasquatch, what would they do?
Capture it and put it in a zoo?
Kill it for an alien autopsy?
Or compassionately set it free?
When I look at archeological evidence
I become filled with suspense.
What we learn from their homes, tools, and bone
fit extinct hominids into categories I already know.
Homo erectus seem like goblins.
Homo neanderthal sound like dwarves
Homo floresiensis like leprechauns.
Homo denisovan much like elves.
Perhaps these myths we still have in our mind
harken back to that far distant time
when for many thousands of years
the Earth with other human species we shared.
Echoes of collective racial archetypes
necessary for ancient Homo sapiens to survive.
So they’d know how to react
if other species they’d contact.
These “mythological” creatures
may describe their actual pertinent features.
Racial memories of that distant time,
when we all shared the same clime.
Perhaps we still need to think them there,
other hominid species living solitaire,
so with guilt our hearts aren’t riven
for having them to extinction driven.
An example of another human
not forcefully expelled from Eden
that still lives in that paradisiacal garden
not needing to seek God’s pardon.
Oh, I hope they do exist!
As comparison us and they betwixt.
Just to prove there is a way
to live free from modernity’s sway.
I’m afraid to lose the reprieve
coming from the chance to believe
some hominids still have the chance
to live within nature’s balance.
Just having watched a presidential debate,
had left me in a sorry state.
Suddenly, to my surprise
I found myself staring into a Big Foot’s eyes.
His eyes were filled with deep suspicion and fear
to at a monster be so near.
Found in the last place I thought to see.
In my mirror staring back at me!
A site from which Big Foot reports came.
A large, primitive ape-like man
who modernity doesn’t understand.
Most believe him a gentle recluse
that for the modern world has no use.
Content to live primitively in forest hidden
avoiding any modern human collision.
Confused and overwhelmed by technology
and the life of the busy bee
of crowded cities and industry
hiding and hoping we’ll let them be.
I wonder, of us, what they think?
Creating an air about us that toxically stinks.
Devouring everything around which we stand
like a plague of locusts on the land.
Most only get a tantalizing glimpse
or impressions of huge footprints.
Some just like the reprieve
of something easier than religion to believe.
Some believe them to be a hoax.
Others treat them like whimsical jokes.
A few think they just might be
and try to prove it scientifically.
There are many scientific examples
of various species samples
that are for most purposes extinct
yet still are found in small pockets distinct.
For example, I once saw a wolverine.
A species no one else I know has seen.
So to most, wolverine is a myth,
no personal experience to prove it exists.
If someone found Sasquatch, what would they do?
Capture it and put it in a zoo?
Kill it for an alien autopsy?
Or compassionately set it free?
When I look at archeological evidence
I become filled with suspense.
What we learn from their homes, tools, and bone
fit extinct hominids into categories I already know.
Homo erectus seem like goblins.
Homo neanderthal sound like dwarves
Homo floresiensis like leprechauns.
Homo denisovan much like elves.
Perhaps these myths we still have in our mind
harken back to that far distant time
when for many thousands of years
the Earth with other human species we shared.
Echoes of collective racial archetypes
necessary for ancient Homo sapiens to survive.
So they’d know how to react
if other species they’d contact.
These “mythological” creatures
may describe their actual pertinent features.
Racial memories of that distant time,
when we all shared the same clime.
Perhaps we still need to think them there,
other hominid species living solitaire,
so with guilt our hearts aren’t riven
for having them to extinction driven.
An example of another human
not forcefully expelled from Eden
that still lives in that paradisiacal garden
not needing to seek God’s pardon.
Oh, I hope they do exist!
As comparison us and they betwixt.
Just to prove there is a way
to live free from modernity’s sway.
I’m afraid to lose the reprieve
coming from the chance to believe
some hominids still have the chance
to live within nature’s balance.
Just having watched a presidential debate,
had left me in a sorry state.
Suddenly, to my surprise
I found myself staring into a Big Foot’s eyes.
His eyes were filled with deep suspicion and fear
to at a monster be so near.
Found in the last place I thought to see.
In my mirror staring back at me!