Serpents,

Take, let us, a simple Christian,

Not child wholly, nor saint,

But one sharing their ego as he trots

About on his earth with his eyes on his scuffed

Shoes, frayed cuffs, and such marks

Of his species—take him,

And tell him that as he is frail and is dust and not even

A mote on somebody’s optic, he could please

Us all most excessively if he’d just

Quick on his belly for God and the Right

merely

Crawl, that’s all—will he do it? Lord, he’ll

Up on his two hind feet to prance and whinny

Like Black Beauty. So I ask you,

Serpents,

Who are the world’s true Christians?

Fish,

As you know he is up there,

Fishing.

He lets his lines down with his hooks and sinkers;

He drags with his nets our provinces;

And not yet sated he even swims down to us,

Brandishing

Sharp things at us as if he were God knows

What, maybe something Greek? But for all this,

Fish,

Think of him not as he would be but as he is,

Poor forked beast,

Who envies us vitamins, oxygen, salts and lebensraum,

And gasping for breath in his thin air watches,

helpless,

As our climbing waters stalk him,

Dogs,

Are you with me?

Fight, shall we, fire with fire? Be wise

In the world’s ways? Listen.

If you be not for the fashion of these times,

Feel too deep the species’ difference, penalty of Rover,

And languish for old custom in your exile,

Then gather round and I’ll unfold, dear friends,

For your ears only,

Shhh …