Sapien as signifier (a poem)

Nothing says humans matter like
the present active participle for discern-slash-capable-
of-discerning, once translated
into Latin. Nothing says intergalactic planetary like

Mike D, MCA, and Ad-Rock, like big history’s David Christian, like
linguistic anthropologists as they
wax eloquent on men who code for cardinal directions
in their everyday speech.

Nothing says our big brains set us apart like,
“Our big brains set us apart.”

Nothing says lack of essential humanity like, “First we got symbolic thought,
and then we got postmodernity,” while our evolutionary
understandings remain far too teleological to save us
from ourselves, so. Nothing says good thing the dinosaurs went extinct like

64.8 million years later we showed up, like
200,000 years after that, it’s May 2017, and we’re here
chilling, thinking existentialist thoughts, spending
1500 pesos on filters for face masks to bike in global cities.

Nothing says the end of the world is upon us, and we did this to the rest like,
“The end of the world is upon us, and we did this to the rest.”

And so at least we will know that we mattered, that we discerned as much, and named ourselves accordingly. (Having done so in a dead language turns out to be tremendously prescient, even.)