These human beings have donned thick hulls.
Within memory they came out raw and slow, and stayed long in the sun.
Now they are visible from time to time
scurrying between their burrows and their borrowed shells
on their way to or from their holes in the main hive.

They still war. There are spotty mass die-outs.
They leave large areas barren and desolate.
From their nests emerge mighty songs.
The rest of us are compelled to listen;
there is no place far away from them.

But their children, and certain mutant colonies,
show that they possess an innate sense of harmony
along with the five senses that they recognize;
that they can function in and help maintain
green heavily specied areas.
They are beginning to mind their manners at watering places.

Their population curve has rounded a corner;
the dizzying rate of climb is bending
toward a plateau on which others might live.

They seem to do everything they need to do
by the skin of their teeth,
the nails on the tips of their fingers, and tails
they don’t even have.
I am amused and horrified,
wheeling hysterically among them,
along for the ride.