INSTINCT AND REASON

They would have us believe
that to defy authority
is to punish nature.
I would want to be sure

what they have in mind
and heart and hand, what signs
of body politics they mean,
before I could agree.

Each sense protests the fact:
a bird obedient to cat,
the innocence of thorns,
a night without awe...

And yet I would accept
a world less than perfect,
for the sake of eggs and kittens,
berries, stars, saints, children.