Without Words, Where Would We Be

How would life exist without words and stories?

Could mankind survive
Without the ability to form words
Into meaningful patterns?
Would stories survive or die out?

Could we learn to compensate?
Find creative ways to communicate?
Or would we revert to our baser instincts?
Would our animal instincts resurface?

Would we dance like the bees,
To communicate the best place to hunt
Or gather food?
Would we problem solve like the crows and chimpanzees
That work at a problem until the answer surfaces?
Would we paint images on rock
To convey our history?

Nature would be our teacher
Experience would be our guide
Life would be primal, instinctual and in the moment.
Past and future would fade.

And only archeologists of the future
Would be able to piece together
A life that once was
From the fragments and physical evidence
Of our time here on earth.

Lines = 24.

Notes ▶︎

Written for The Writer's Cramp - due 11:59 am Monday March 13, 2023
What would happen if people could no longer read or write? What if the words no longer formed into those beautiful patterns in their minds. How would they compensate? Revert to a hunter/gatherer or barter society? How creative is mankind?
Write a short story or poem about a writer in a society unable to learn how to read or writing.
Make one of the genre relationship.