Mr. & Mrs. Noah
 (Lou & Peter Berryman, ©2001)
 
 
 
You got the sheep?
      			
You got the germs?
				
You got giraffes?
				
You got the worms?
				
You got the scroichahs? You got the scroichahs?     	
 

	     	I got the sheep

				I got the germs

				I got giraffes

				I got the worms

    	Well . . . eh . . . 
Noah, how you gonna populate the world without the canfornikky 
Lowing of the scroichahs on the edges of the fens?
The feelers on their flanks, along their wings and up their antlers
Undulating in the chambers of their underwater dens
   To tell the truth, although they're fairly easy to attract	
   They're hard to catch, they smell like paint, and they're reported to be mean
   Besides their being fast and dumb, they also are destructive
   Eating fields of purple loosestrife and exuding gasoline

You got the bears?  Bats?  Moths?  Rats?  Yunchies? 
Noah, how you gonna populate the world without the transcendental
Yelping of the yunchies in the caverns off Belize?
The thinsulated bulges of their oscillating bellies 
Making ripples in the undertow below your dungarees
   What good are they, for though they wander glumly to the traps
   They make a mess, they're self-important and they're hard to get to know
   Besides their being petulant they roam across the earth 
   Digesting boxcars of plutonium and peeing H2O

You got the pigs?   Voles?   Flies?   Moles?   Patangas?
Noah, how you gonna populate the world without the syncopated
Gurgle of patangas by the locks along the Fox?
The hypersonic flutter of their subthoracic nubbins
Toward pupation in riparian delphiniums and phlox
   What good are they, for though they do adhere to tanglefoot
   They are unruly, overbearing, and they feel like lumps of snot
   They multiply and devastate the zebra mussel population
   Plus they feed on tsetse flies which bothers me a lot

You got the flurgs?  Voobs?  Keelsh? Koobs? Gadupples?  Pepings?
Noah, how you gonna populate the world without the voobs and koobs
And keelsh and flurgs and pepings and gadupples in the trees?
Their symbiotic eloquence while inching up the cambium
Descending pentatonically in groups of twos and threes
   What good are they, for though they have their moments
   They do nothing but collectively make oxygen where diesel smoke belongs
   Sporadically ingurgitating PCBs and acid rain 
   They live to eat the editors of long and silly songs