Wisława Szymborska Polish poet
The innocence of nature
Mocked by the depravity of humanity
You chose to spotlight the genocide
Of the Tarsier, a primate, DNA like ours,
With enormous seeing eyes.
You made the humble Tarsier
A metaphor for the innocence of nature
Exploited, ripped apart, killed for meat
Mocked for fun. No empathy between
Tarsier and Human. Man the killer
Species. You used bitter irony
To deny humanity's pretensions
To goodness.
Maybe being Polish helped
Squashed between two ravaging giants
Russia and Germany
Yours is the land of the Concentration
Camp. If humans can slaughter children
By the hundreds of thousands
What are the bastards going to do
To a wee Tarsier?
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M.C. Newberry
Tue 26th Sep 2023 14:47
Other life forms are marked by an absence of guilt or conscience.
We excuse them under the word "nature" when they kill or torture. It is to our credit that we use language to lift our
actions above that level and thereby condemn those of our own
kind who kill and torture. It is that which raises us beyond the
rest of creation and we lose sight of it at our peril in an otherwise unforgiving world.