Moon Over Under Canvas

Perhaps muse on the possibility

That we are never better than the world,

Nor the world any more moral than us—

Although whatever we mean by better

Or more moral may be unique to us,

The odd forms of violence among us.

Perhaps because we can never accept

Morality smoothly distributed—

Any more than trees can negotiate

Perpetually equal shares of sunlight,

Despite intertwined camaraderie,

Each twig so dependent on a forest—

Moral inequality being how

We allocate and justify our lives,

Especially our most successful thefts,

Our most violent appropriations,

We have to assess our surroundings’ worth

Compared to our sense of ourselves—better?

Worse? Mother Nature as “an old woman

Who has some nasty habits”? Our species

As noble overseers put here by God,

Or rapacious changelings who don’t belong?

Sometimes we draw up the unbalanced sides

So that some of us can be natural

And that nature can be good, while others

Most unnatural, most foul, must be bad—

Although it’s curious how we then paint

The wicked among us as venomous

Or verminous, inhabitants of bogs.

As we divide ourselves, so we divide

Our world, and, as our world, divide ourselves.

This mode may be ours. The pattern’s the world’s.