‘TIS PROTECTION

Oh, such smells as these are life,

The acrid scent of diesel strife,

The rumble of the ground nearby,

Bring old thoughts to me to cry,

‘Tis wondrous huge machines they are,

Built for strength to win a war,

Smooth as skin of the saurian,

They are the behemoths of our creation,

When they lumber past a place,

Your pulse they quicken to the race,

With their mouth they roar and flame,

The killing field is not a game,

To win a war and not lose cause,

They will use them all with laws,

If they began to maim and kill,

Using no allowed legal skill,

The full use they were meant for,

Our defense and not your torture,

Would become quite moot and die,

Just as the leviathan bid ‘bye,

Struck down by something from the skies,

No match for it merely by size.

PTR March 3-4, 1997