LOCUST PLANET

"Locusts, the flying plague"
        -(The Good Earth: Pearl S. Buck)


 It is thus written:
As the aqua ducts dry up,
and the winds stand still,
rivers go frothing stinky,
the skies blackened, burned out,
spreading
death in air you breathe,
disease in drinking water,
nay, poison in breast-milk-
then, they shall definitely come:

Swarming the horizons in terror
a giant sea-motion in the sky,
bent for the last panicles,
to drain greenery of life_
they shall definitely come:

thus it is written:
that they shall definitely come
as locusts,
as landslide of total demolition:

thus it is written:
they would enlighten you
that seeds are not for propagation
and rivers not for flowing:

You tell them that
ancestors interred in the earth
sprout as plants, grow as trees
and ripen as fruits.
But lo, they buried them, forgot them !
and after you, only the weaker ones;
their tribe has decreed
that no one is to come any more
to whip them out of nefarious deals.

Thus it is written:
In times of termination
as the sacred goes filthy,
the bright goes dark,
and sense goes foolishness,
the locusts of trade shall come,
and shall definitely overwhelm.