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The Best of Archy and Mehitabel

Page 11

by Don Marquis

here is what the ants are saying

  it wont be long now it wont be long

  man is making deserts of the earth

  it wont be long now

  before man will have used it up

  so that nothing but ants

  and centipedes and scorpions

  can find a living on it

  man has oppressed us for a million years

  but he goes on steadily

  cutting the ground from under

  his own feet making deserts deserts deserts

  we ants remember

  and have it all recorded

  in our tribal lore

  when gobi was a paradise

  swarming with men and rich

  in human prosperity

  it is a desert now and the home

  of scorpions ants and centipedes

  what man calls civilization

  always results in deserts

  man is never on the square

  he uses up the fat and greenery of the earth

  each generation wastes a little more

  of the future with greed and lust for riches

  north africa was once a garden spot

  and then came carthage and rome

  and despoiled the storehouse

  and now you have sahara

  sahara ants and centipedes

  toltecs and aztecs had a mighty

  civilization on this continent

  but they robbed the soil and wasted nature

  and now you have deserts scorpions ants and centipedes

  and the deserts of the near east

  followed egypt and babylon and assyria

  and persia and rome and the turk

  the ant is the inheritor of tamerlane

  and the scorpion succeeds the caesars

  america was once a paradise

  of timberland and stream

  but it is dying because of the greed

  and money lust of a thousand little kings

  who slashed the timber all to hell

  and would not be controlled

  and changed the climate

  and stole the rainfall from posterity

  and it wont be long now

  it wont be long

  till everything is desert

  from the alleghenies to the rockies

  the deserts are coming

  the deserts are spreading

  the springs and streams are drying up

  one day the mississippi itself

  will be a bed of sand

  ants and scorpions and centipedes

  shall inherit the earth

  men talk of money and industry

  of hard times and recoveries

  of finance and economics

  but the ants wait and the scorpions wait

  for while men talk they are making deserts all the time

  getting the world ready for the conquering ant

  drought and erosion and desert

  because men cannot learn

  rainfall passing off in flood and freshet

  and carrying good soil with it

  because there are no longer forests

  to withhold the water in the

  billion meticulations of the roots

  it wont be long now it won’t be long

  till earth is barren as the moon

  and sapless as a mumbled bone

  dear boss i relay this information

  without any fear that humanity

  will take warning and reform

  archy

 

 

 


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