The ground is getting warmer,
Soon the humans will emerge.

For some time
In the summer
Each brief brood
Makes the same mistakes
And meets the same end.
They fill the same spaces
Plug the same gaps,
If you made a map
Of each contagion
You could see them overlap
Building up and on
Over and again
Endlessly uninventive.

They can’t help but overshoot
Overspilling past our protection
Pushing out in each direction
Until we’re forced to shut it
Down, keep the earth fallow
For a while.

It’s something to see the planet work
Around itself
In silence.

For when they awake
The noise can reach into the ears
Of the whole universe.
Some can’t stand the buzzing
And others hate the bodies
And we must beg patience
For them, for they’ll run
Themselves out.

Hairless flesh and huge heads
Hands groping in the dirt
To find the parents lost,
The ones who sent them
Unprotected and unguided
Each generation
Thinking they’re alone.
They go to ground
Thinking they’re the end.

Unseeing they’re the seeds
Unheedful of their impact
Unknowing of it all
Outside their own selves.