I.
Approbation!
Reprobation!
Blowing hot and blowing cold!
Id ego!
Super ego!
Blowing hot and blowing cold!
Is it nature?
Or is nurture?
Blowing hot and blowing cold!
Let’s ask Sigmund
Or Lord Denning…
Blowing hot and blowing cold!
II.
I am the contentious child
In the kingly hands of Solomon:
Nature fights to have me!
Nurture fights to have me!
My first mother was my upbringing
And my second mother was law.
Will the Court of Solomon
Slice me into two for each mother
To have a share
Or will Themis scale me into two fifties
To give each mother an equal share to hold?
Nature fights to have me!
Nurture fights to have me!
I am my mothers’ son,
And in my solitary cradle
I have, on many occasions, sought
To reconcile my mothers’ differences.
But how can I play the mediator,
When one mother taught me
Not to call a dog a dingo,
And the other mother said
A dog can be called a dingo?
Still….
Nature fights to have me!
Nurture fights to have me!
III.
Natural justice!
Technical justice!
Blowing hot and blowing cold!
Social justice!
Legal justice!
Blowing hot and blowing cold!
Technical justice!
Equitable justice!
Blowing hot and blowing!
Since I became a lawyer,
I knew I had become a double barrel gun:
Myself by nature
And myself by design.
But where my two motherly equities go equal,
I sure will let the first in time prevail.
—Bolaji Ramos, Esq.