When Mister Denisovan encountered Miss Neanderthal

 

A young man from Denisova met Miss Neanderthal.

He said, “Come into my cave; see my etchings on the wall.”

Her parents warned her, “Honey, please avoid those Russian men.

“They screwed us in Croatia and they’ll sure do it again.” (1)

 

But kids are kids; they had a daughter; she grew to her teens.

(We know who mom and daddy were by sequencing her genes.)

Did this girl cause a scandal?  Were her parents ostracized?

Like we treat different races or by whom one is baptized?

 

The young Denisovan hooked up with Miss Neanderthal,

Was it regarded as misogyny by one and all?

The feuding of the Hatfields and McCoys may come to mind,

Or the religious differences we’ve made up over time.

 

So Romeo and Juliet’s girl grew up to her teens,

And, though she died, her family tree was coded her genes.

Did races and religions ninety thousand years ago

Affect us as they do today, the problems we all know?

 

We Homos are a randy lot; sex often flouts the rules.

Just think of priests, where sadly, concupiscence overrules

Church rules and vows they made to God, so species variants

Might not keep different species from a weekend mating dance.

 

So, on the way to sapiens, ancestors of us all

Did lots of interbreeding.  Weekends must have been a ball!

With nothing much to do on dates, no movies, no dance bands,

No restaurants or theaters; that simplified their plans.

 

• The Neanderthal female’s genes suggest a relationship to the Neanderthal fossils found in the Vindija cave in modern day Croatia. Her family was a long way from home.  Stephen Zegura, personal communication.

 

Stephen Baird, August, 2018