116

For Neanderthals

and All Those Who Still Evolve

It is cruel—and it is sublime:

far children’s laughter,

strains drifting down

the twisty stair we climb

into the darkness where we drown.

Belief may fail hereafter

in bleaks of time,

but if (against all chance able to weigh

divine despair)

we find their ball

dropped, quicksilver, then say

it up toward the still starless All

as proof that on a black stair

children play.