Cuckoo

With every bow of a covered head,
With every muttered prayer, Man
Is marching on to his own oblivion.


Snow covered them and the cold.
In cliffs, in caves, formed in many
Ages past, are stored stone skulls;
Faces from the long-lost dead; fossils
Of forgotten ancestors:  before-men;
The predecessors of our new species.


Each skull portrays the hair-line cracks
Of limb-delivered violence; these blows
Delivered on them by their fellow men.


Evolution has not carried us so very far;
For blighted brood-parasitism of religions
Has cracked the consciences of far more
Than did flailing limbs of angry ancestors.
Bad beliefs have shouldered Compassion
And Reason outside reaches of the heart. 


Doctrine and rubric are the twin cancers
Consuming; tainted rivals and devourers,
Crowding chivalry's nest upon limb of life.