The law, the right, the actual, and the good
Are words with different meanings, different
Words we’ve evolved, different for good reason.
Law is not equivalent to right, nor right to good,
Nor is any of them equal to what is actual.
Each has its own domain within experience.
Law is social, a jointed exoskeleton, a shield
Against predators and parasites, but also
A restriction, requiring periodic shedding,
And every time the casque is loosed, the life
Of the whole society is vulnerable, exposed.
The only eternal aspect of law is limitation,
Limitation governing social scope and scale.
So it has to be. Right updates law, but never
Without prolonged effort, as the enzymatic
Forces of righteousness dissolve old bonds
And fuse the new. Good is purely hormonal
In this conceit, an urge, a surging feeling.
Goodness is tender, raw without law, willing
To defy the right, to do the wrong thing,
To hide the fugitive, comfort the wicked, love
The sinner impulsively enough to forget the sin.
Good is neither punctilious nor conscientious
But does. When the laws change, when the right
Of one phase is dust in the laws’ husk left behind,
The outlaws of the good become retrospective
Heroes, sometimes. Invariably, the good explain
They had no choice. They did good. So it has
To be. The actual, beyond constraint by law,
Beyond righteous revolution, beyond being saved
By the most urgent goodness, never minds.
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