The Rat

Is the rat offended by the smell of the dump?

Before cities,

before squalor and pestilence and sewers,

where did the rat dwell?

Did he love the meadows

and stream banks,

basking in the sun,

chewing grain and berries,

swimming in the glinting waters?

How did he become the symbol of disease?

I don’t believe it was his first job description.

The atrophy of nature’s balance,

and probably no resume´,

knocked him to a bottom rung,

poor bloke.

I’d be mean too if I lived in the sewer

or was experimented on in a laboratory.