Dung Beetle
A beetle races from its deep hiding
To gather more food for the morning!
Amidst its fields of fruits and bananas,
In the open plains of African savanna.
A tiny black bug, glowing in the sand
It shoots across the sun-dried land
Busy pace and not enough time,
to roll back a nitrogen ball sublime!
Every morning at the break of dawn
The beetle is out as agile as a fawn
It is suited black from top to toe,
Like some tycoon with trade to grow!
It wore no tie, has no briefcase
But had jointed legs for life’s race,
two large feelers that sense the air
To locate discards from cattle’s rear!
Large balls of partly digested grass,
Are a high carbon and nitrogen mass,
Will be stacked over and well stored,
For beetle generations,a wealth hoard!
The storage den is a deep deep hole,
That has a fortune of dung ball rolls,
Collected diligently in an insane craze
To store away in the underground maze!
This busy businessman drives no cars,
But still navigates with milky-way stars,
Can precisely locate mound of waste,
And roll them home for a later date!
It’s desire for earning has no bounds
In a day it makes very many rounds,
hoardings often exceed the life needs,
Yet every morning for more it speeds!!
And finally one day it meets its fate,
A flick of tongue and it’s a lizard’s waste!
In the brief history of this beetles life,
Are the resonance of our own strife!
When the earnings exceed our own need,
wealth becomes just a measure of greed!
The meaningless chase of that wealth,
At an immense cost to our own health.
We may detest the beetle for what it brings,
The beetle has no value for gold savings,
Here is a lesson to us all with greed,
What we already have, is all that we need!
Copyright © Krish Radhakrishna | Year Posted 2019
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