WHY DO COCKERELS CROW WHEN MOON GLOWS? SONNET 1958

I.
Unsymmetrical moon hung neath eaves
Its beams stole into the darkened room.
A book with pencil betwixt the leaves
Laid on shafts of light illumed.
The night wind swept thru opened door
Wind’s fingers leafing from protozoa to metazoan
And thence man from lower form soared
Procreating with spermatozoa.
In yonder pen cockerels crowed
Invading the stillness of moonlit night
Why do cockerels crow when moon glows?
Hormones surge twixt hypophysis and light.
Romancing the hen in yonder pen.
Perpetuation of the species – an innate yen.
II.
The answer suffices but in part
Tis but life plotted in test tubes –
Psycho – Physio – and Bio’s arts
Calculated in roots – squares – and cubes.
Isolated the cockerels strutted
Across the field pullets gaily clucked.
Feathers flew – spurs slashes – heads butted.
Victor crowed and vanquish in the muck.
Selected for their chromosomes
Into a harem the roosters mate.
Vigor – intensity in autosomes,
Roosters mated after long wait.
Rejects and culls – no seed they’ll sow
The victors boisterously crow and crow.