Epipredator

Let's rest a moment in the compromise

Position of avoiding cruelty.

It won't last long, but it buys us some peace,

Some pretense we can stay alive and choose

To behave in a way that won't haunt us,

Though snuffing striving out at an instant

Isn't possible and wouldn't feel right

Now, would it? In the dance of life on Earth,

Cruelty's the first position, the rest

All extenuating circumstances

Pirouetting from that opening stance.

But there's no need to go around stomping

Death into things feebly scrambling away.

I, for one, have seen more reenactments

Of the Rite of Spring than necessary.

It's not life's only choreography,

Although, come to think of it, I couldn't

Say for dead certain that it is crueler

Than all those downy swans' and doves' descents

That seem to extend life so gracefully,

Lotos blossoming the face of the deep.