Cicero versus Epicurus

The pleasure of your company falls

inside the company of pleasing friends,

and principles are put aside, like dolls

and wooden horses, when childish virtue ends:

where orators proclaim the virtuous state

above the state of virtue, wise men fold

their maps away, admit they’re lost, and wait

for guides whose duty derives from law, not gold.

But we who calculate beneath the moon,

like moles beneath the lawn, have never known

the luxury of simple concepts, rune

unanalyzed or signature on stone:

we undercut the mountains, call the tune

the piper plays, with currency of our own.