Justice
Should we rescue the soft, powdery moth
gyrating in fluttery panic viciously gripped
by a wasp that rides crouched behind its head
like a tiny jockey made of shiny black majolica?
Or should we let nature, where nothing’s mean,
meaning petty according to Emerson,
take (or give, for that matter) its course,
as we’re wont to presume some choice
in the matter? Or should we just stomp on
both of them and march on? Why, you ask?
Because ugly’s ugly no matter what
direct object’s tacked on to a dangling what,
and once a stomp’s stomped what’s the use
of asking why? Or why ask if terror governs
in things so small? Shouldn’t we imagine
the moth’s frantic flapping and the wasp’s
fierce pincers not as fear and hunger
but just some buzzing in almost brainless
beings? What’s in miniscule black orbs
that pass for eyes but the tiniest glimmer
of a reflected world in which, if only we
could see in things so small, shadows
of ourselves are bending to observe
a casual horror, as we make our judgments
to do or not to do before moving on?
gyrating in fluttery panic viciously gripped
by a wasp that rides crouched behind its head
like a tiny jockey made of shiny black majolica?
Or should we let nature, where nothing’s mean,
meaning petty according to Emerson,
take (or give, for that matter) its course,
as we’re wont to presume some choice
in the matter? Or should we just stomp on
both of them and march on? Why, you ask?
Because ugly’s ugly no matter what
direct object’s tacked on to a dangling what,
and once a stomp’s stomped what’s the use
of asking why? Or why ask if terror governs
in things so small? Shouldn’t we imagine
the moth’s frantic flapping and the wasp’s
fierce pincers not as fear and hunger
but just some buzzing in almost brainless
beings? What’s in miniscule black orbs
that pass for eyes but the tiniest glimmer
of a reflected world in which, if only we
could see in things so small, shadows
of ourselves are bending to observe
a casual horror, as we make our judgments
to do or not to do before moving on?
