Man, too, 's a gentle beast,  as he takes a woman's side as well
as in every other thing he does.
The many stories of boy loses girl come about
because he seems incompetent
at basic duties in this world.
Too sweet, too shy,  not commanding,
too subtle to offer protection when big bad
wolves come knocking at the door.
This state is his manly doom, that he can
in his gentleness not protest when he is tested
or put in the wrong.  He cannot lift a finger
but only show his great meekness,
the sensitivity that drills down to
the energied center of the entire world's
great reality.
He's cut from the same mould that presents
us Christ as so, on his way to becoming Buddha.
But it's his job sometimes to hide all this,
to go through life with a deft touch.
And his reality is just his reality, saved for the jobs he does.
Some men are great pretenders, though,
with their great greyback shows and heavy bellies,
their higher intellect, their surpassing cleverness,
full of bluff and ardor,
but all of that will get them nowhere
further or faster, because,
deep down,
man's a gentle beast,
fragile, in his time, as the rest.


It is within the nature of things
that the nature of things is hidden.
The peasant makes as good a scientist
as any, as Shakespeare often tells us,
as Tolstoy knew.  Too much science
and you miss the point, distracted by
instruments and measurements.