Patron Poet of San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO--I'm cheating, a little, to include poetry from others, since that way I don't have to compose my own, but this one expresses a view dear to the heart of the Wandering Naturalist, and it comes from St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of my new home town:

DOES EVERY CREATURE HAVE A SOUL?

A tool
in your hand I am, dear God,
the sweetest instrument you have shaped my being into.

What makes me now complete--
feeling the soul of every creature against
my heart.

Does every creature have a
soul?

Surely they do; for anything God has touched
will have life
forever,

and all creatures He
has held.

--St. Francis of Assisi, translated by Daniel Ladinsky in Love Poems from God