Smart Old World

Smart old world
we have here, that invented
obsolesence, aging,
erosion, and death
to keep itself from getting bored.

Selfish old world
that came up with
mitosis and meiosis,
cell division and birth,
just to shake things up.

Strange old world
that melds the two things
regularly, so that one leads
into the other.  Think of
the mantis with his missing head

in the mouth of his mate
as she begins to gestate,
or your neighbor’s sorrow
as he laughs at the antics of the child
whose mother, his wife, died to produce.

Stoic world,
coated in a thin skim of our poison,
is biding its time.  You think
a world like this won’t survive us?
It barely notices us, pal.

When this world’s had its fill
of us it’ll throw us off like a
past season coat.  It will rub
minerals together and try something
new.  We’re just toys, not even pets,

but an enzyme inside us tells us otherwise,
screams, “I’m special! I’m here!” Well,
trickster world gave us that too.  We make do
acting like the world is in us and
we’re indispensable. Can you hear the laughter?