The Agricultural Revolution

Was it like penicillin, dynamite, 
            and Velcro, ten million other breakthroughs— 
            a happy accident? A germ hitchhiked 

back to the campfire’s rich ash, dropped, and grew? 
            Or was it love? Did some young troglodyte 
pause at the cavemouth, shy, a bouquet 

            of bluebells or wheat held loosely by the throat? 
We’ll never know. But it must’ve been night 
            and day—To think, you go from chasing after roe 

with pointy sticks through dense nettle, fighting 
            for food, to cornflakes for breakfast. Tell me, 
who wouldn’t feel like a god, having brought 

            the world to heel? All the rest—rising seas, 
            fires, black death in permafrost, 2,4-D, 
scarcity, need—the rest was history.