Darwinian

“Painted Desert”
Painting by Carol Nelson
From dailypainters.com

in its shadowfold skin
creased by telltales
of too-ancient rains
inhospitable desert
conceals vinegarroons
at their pincering forage
wanting for moisture
if only from inside
some exoskel thorax
life lower and slower
to serve and sustain
at the pleasure of
higher forms such is the
custom of eons become
law of nature adaptive
Darwinian only one
creature equipped to
effect truly momentous
change with one stroke
of a choice alter habits
and predispositions of
feral existence how oddly
remarkable is it
to find he is me