Nature Show

I may have some of the details wrong,

But this is what I recall:

I once saw a PBS nature show 

About a tribe of baboons

Ruthlessly ruled over by dominant males

Who bullied the lesser males 

Into submission 

And claimed the females as their property, 

Bullying them as well. 

It was a depressing show,

Showcasing the brutality 

Of nature, red in tooth and claw, 

The survival of the fittest, 

And all that.

Depressingly, it made me wonder,

How far have we evolved? 

But then, those ruling baboons 

Went looking for food, 

Scavenging near city, 

They dumpster dived.

They devoured tainted meat. 

They all died. 

The hierarchy disappeared. 

In its place, a new baboon tribe emerged:

Less violent, more egalitarian,

More... if such a term can be applied to primates

So primitive compared to us... 

Civilized. 

If interlopers appeared 

Who tried to bully their way to the top again,

They were, I believe, ignored, 

Or possibly 

Showed to the figurative door. 

The tribe's new message:

We don't run our tribe that way. 

I'm not sure what our solution might be, 

But it seems to me we might need to find our own 

Dumpster full of tainted meat.

Or maybe we just need to start saying,

Loud and clear,

We don't run our tribe that way.