The Culling Agent
By John Robilotta
I sit on my lanai
three flights above the water’s edge.
Shore life comes and goes.
Black and white ibis,
with their elongated beaks,
feed on the shoreline.
A great blue heron
suns on the far banks.
Anhingas and cormorants dry their wings
atop stone outcroppings.
There is much life about
the water this year,
particularly since the alligator
was removed by a concerned citizen.
Nature requires a culling agent
to keep its balance.
So too does mankind.
Whether it be war, plague or famine,
history teaches that catastrophic events
wean the weak and hungry.
Is such time upon us now?
A new president.
The doomsday clock
pushed toward midnight.
An unsteady hand
poised ever so close
to the codes of a nuclear arsenal.
Mankind, and other creatures,
a knee jerk away
from an ultimate culling.
John Robilotta lives in Sayville, NY, and winters in Ft. Myers, Fl, where he is a member of the Poetry Alliance, part of the Alliance for the Arts of Lee County. He has had poems featured in “The Broadsides” at the Alliance and An Evening of Poetry at the Visual Arts Center in Punta Gorda, Fl. John also has had numerous readings in Ft. Myers and Sayville.
Photo by Andy Hay of the”Famine Memorial” sculpture by Rowan Gillespie, via a Creative Commons license.