Classic Poem

What do we say, then? Is it
(in whatever tongue) God's Will
that a certain percentage
of individual sacrifice
be exacted of each species,
our own included? — Making the Aztec
theologians better than ours
when they read what the rate was
and paid-up early, acknowledging
God's will with a garotte
or a sharp stone? ...
After all,
the Gods may be murderous but
They're not stupid. They wouldn't
(ordinarily) grab everybody ;
just the usual fraction, just
interest , not capital . The un -
sacrificed are excused thereby
to go in good conscience . . . . So

if the Gods are astonished, ob-
serving even the saved break
and cry at such bitter terms,
that's only to be expected,
is it not? If nothing is real
but numbers and those grow ex-
ponentially, where is the loss? ... Not
that They'd ever ask. No,
They're all Mathematicians, and tears
don't compute . . . . The Aztecs surely
made more sense to Them, seeing
there are no votes taken in Heaven
on the numbers of the slain
or the waves of the sea; no liberals
up there, and no democrats. If
we didn't know, we know now:
watching one loved and loving
and young for whom each morning
drives a sharp stone one micron
deeper into the breast.