AFTER THE FLY

Our Species
(At least in the West)
Has long since
(Adam was a boy)
Renounced All Accommodation
Of the Other-than-Human-World.

Its spirits denied
That world is subsumed
By Human desire:
Made a thing
That enables us all
But is denied a soul.

Its Agency ignored
By a reductive
Consciousness
That channels Only
Its own hollow
Manifestations.

This proprietary
Attitude
Does not make it so.
Just lessens us
As we wallow in
Our beleaguered Humanity:

A virtue made
Of our extirpation
From that Garden
Long Ago.
Mammon exalted.
Eden desecrated.   

The Fly, William Blake,
Songs of Experience, 1794