THE FREE WILL OF AN OYSTER

THE FREE WILL OF AN OYSTER

THE FREE WILL OF AN OYSTER

Lurcher puppies, brown and gold, playing in the straw
of a farmyard. Ears, teeth and tails. The individual
in society. Tussle, flight, invention, fight.

     “It cannot be doubted that they have free will.
     If they, then all animals – even an oyster:
     whose free will must result from the limits of shell,
     pulp, valve. Free will is to mind what chance

     is to matter, changing the body’s arrangements.
     So may free will make changes, too, in Man.”
     And the mind, belvedere of the body?
     “Beyond doubt, part of the process.”

No deity, no lutes of paradise. Only the smell of tall grass,
tissue adaptive as light from a star
and quick cells vivid to change in the struggle for life.