There is nothing heroic about Nature
It wears you and breaks you
And raises you and makes you
Tall, with an indifference
To any rules, other than its own –
Random rules to us,
But absolute enough in the execution.
So, why is it that a tiny part of me
Says, somethings are heroic?
Nature says ‘no’ and sees it otherwise,
It is only how things must be;
The weak succumbing to the strong;
The courageous and the cowardly,
Gentle carers and amoral exploiters,
The thinkers and the vacuous,
All have attributes on a scale
Determined by other forces than their own.
I say ‘no’ and see it otherwise,
Appealing to an arbiter beyond Nature
To find the truth;
Which leaves me feeling foolish,
But otherwise courageous.
Let those who will the basic instincts find
My search is for the secrets of the higher mind.
September 1998