How many of you are there! And not one
that I can see is better than the rest.
With what a single mind your work is done—
set on what is enough, and not what’s best.
That’s how we’d be if we were better. You
have managed what civilization can’t.
If we were more intelligent, we’d do
as you do, but we aren’t, so we shan’t.
But if we learn from him who told us that
to be of one mind is to be like him,
we might learn it from you, and arrive at
the wisdom that has been your every whim.
And that, I see, is why he made you so:
he makes tangible what we ought to know.
~~~
So great! So fell! So glorious and free!
How are you come to learn a thing from me?
Though if our raging instincts could agree,
we both could seek more than our eyes could see.
That said, I think I can learn much from you.
With all your greatness, still you stop to gaze
at glenside vistas and the mountain view
when you are not compelled to seek for preys.
Be great enough to stop, I think. Be still
because you are more than your every foe.
For when you look beyond your hungry will,
that’s something about God I think you know.
And you know more than we, who cannot stop
despite being, in food chains, at the top.