NATURE'S VISITORS

                                                                 XLVIII

My garden is pesticide free
And nature has a free hand,
So she gathers together her outcasts
In a merry marauding band.

Slugs and snails all visit
With unfailing regularity -
They breakfast on my hostas -
Have salad for their tea.

Carrot and onion flies
Are all invited too -
The Almighty must have made them
When he'd nothing else to do.

Greenfly, blackfly, whitefly
Are all on the guest list,
They're regular attenders
No party's ever missed.

Caterpillars eat the cabbages,
But when they're butterflies,
They treat us to aerial ballets
Across our summer skies.

The evening visitors are
Mosquito, midge and mite
Who zoom in for their dinner
In the fading evening light.

Nature is a lavish hostess
But I really do wish
That some of her guests could feature
In the main course dish.


June 1990

20th CENTURY MAN

                                                                       XLVII

How will history judge us?
Will our epitaph be:
The people who were responsible for
Polluting the wide open sea?

Will we be remembered for
Our fast and reliable cars,
Or for poisoning city centres
And spreading motorway scars?

Will future generations say we used
Their share of fossil fuel
And decimated several species
With our weapons - efficient and cruel?

Will they appreciate our development
Of non-reactive gases
That damage the ozone layer
Bringing cancer to suntanned masses?

Will they admire our grain production
Or will they all say
That nitrate poisoned water
Is too high a price to pay?

Will our children thank us
For nuclear energy
Or compain that we have ruined
Their land and sky and sea?

Will they laud us as the conquerors
Of many a crippling disease
Or remember us for destroying
Untold millions of trees?

Will our descendents revere our inventions  -
Our achievements - our space plan  -
Or call us "Homo destructus"
Twentieth century man.

17.10.1991
Written for the World Wildlife Poetry Competition