Like the gases you spew, you’d rather not see us.
You ignore us, in fact,
and when we do emerge in your snug, smug world,
you get righteous and squeamish and scared.
We include dung beetles, locusts, honeybees, mosquitos.
On the one hand, we amass, and we ruin your fields and your health.
On the other, we are rapidly dying – and so will most flowers and birds.
We outnumber you, a hundred-and-twenty-five million to one,
we even outweigh you, seventeen to one,
yet it’s you who are upending the balance of life.
We service the Earth.
You flee into space, lusting for minerals on moons.
—
Jim Krosschell’s poems and essays have appeared in some 75 journals, and he has published two essay collections: One Man’s Maine, which won a Maine Literary Award, and Owls Head Revisited. He lives in Northport, ME and Newton, MA, and is Board President of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.
