Our Father (Arthur) in Heaven; our Nature, nurtured on Earth.

There's "Nature red in tooth and claw"*, ... and hoof,

and horn, and venom, bear-hug, slipp'ry slope,

and snapping, snipping, stopping, stinging. Smooth,

but also rough and tumble. And there's hope.

On two counts, maybe three, some insight comes

(that is, it seems to me to bring some light):

we do not readily do all our sums,

and think to make new rules, with pow'r and might

to back them up, and "make" folk do what's true,

& right, and "think of others", and be fair.

If love exists in either me or you,

then nature is but mechanism where,

like fam'ly pet (a creature lifted up,

and named and given status in the house),

it plays a part, like kitten or like pup,

and gains some family culture, not as spouse,

or child, or parent, friend, though none the less,

with some appreciation (though not much)

it might sometimes attempt to rule the "nest",

it must be put in place, and kept in touch

with how the fam'ly works (and who's the boss).

That's not because the fam'ly works that way

with members who are people. Pets ha'en't lost

their personhood, they gain it more each day

that they can stay and live within this thing

called fam'ly life, and household ways and means,

though birds might help young children learn to sing,

the household doesn't shrink to what pets seem.

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*  Quote from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's epic elegy for his friend Arthur, In Memoriam, as he wrestled, pondering this same "question". Discussed here (in Wikipedia) & here (in a magazine article, written by a presuppositional? Materialist).

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