the weekly poem.com

Son of Sponge

Darwin – let the bishops curse! –
Claimed our ancestors were chimp.
Some cited Bible (chapter, verse)
And said that Science was a pimp.

They said that Darwin was facetious,
Biologist as prostitute,
His Origins brought this, our species,
Into shocking disrepute.

Since then, we’ve come to understand,
We grew from some primeval gunge:
But surely this is out of hand –
To claim we came from a bathroom sponge?

This morning, at the usual time,
I filled the tub up to the edge,
To scrub away nocturnal grime,
But heard a voice call from a ledge:

“Oy, chum! Put down that slab of soap!
If I’m to judge you, mere defendant,
You surely sense my shame, I hope,
That a scruff like you is my descendant.”

Read the New Scientist story here

Read Bill’s daily ‘Bill Posters’ blog by clicking here

Son of Sponge
According to Kevin Peterson, a molecular palaeobiologist at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, as reported in New Scientist, "If you had a time machine and brought back the last common ancestor of all living animals, and you gave it to an invertebrate zoology class, they'd call it a bath sponge."
6 May 2006

POETRY KIT WEBRING

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