First to Leave - Nov 17 2024

First to Leave

Nov 17 2024

I’m told rats laugh when they’re tickled,

but too high-pitched

for human ears.

That they’re social animals

who care for their families,

may even grieve

when faced with death.

Rats, our not-so-distant relatives

and fellow urban dwellers,

world travellers

and clever opportunists

who along with us

have colonized the earth.

Yet we say dirty rat

rat-faced

ratted out.

Ratty

and rat-infested house,

that rats are first to leave

a sinking ship.

So who would have imagined

how close we are,

warm-blooded mammals

who uneasily coexist.

Has familiarity bred contempt?

Or are we defending ourselves

by projecting our worst?

As if to point and say look

it’s them, not us.

But still, there’s much we share.

Because, after all, size is just a number

and tails are mere appendages,

while beady eyes mean nothing

and fur coats can be bought.

And what’s so different from biting your nails

than teeth

that will curve through your skull

unless you constantly gnaw?

And because “vermin” is laughable.

After all, who’s the real culprit here?

Competing for status

and battling other packs,

gorging ourselves to death

on sugar, salt, and fat.

Scurrying about the planet,

exploiting it

for all it’s worth

and crapping where we live,

while reproducing

as Malthus feared.

Still, after the sinking ship

slips beneath the waves,

who do you think will survive

swimming madly away?

David Remnick wrote in the New Yorker today about Trump’s great fear of being seen as a laughingstock (so insecure!) and — after all those laughable cabinet picks — about how ironic that is. \

Have you ever seen Trump himself laugh, except when it’s at some other’s expense? Is this a man with absolutely no sense of humour?

When laughter came to on mind reading this, I thought about that rat experiment. So started riffing, and — as so often unfortunately happens — I ended up repeating a theme I’ve by now worked to death: man and the despoiling of the environment. Who knows why my mind automatically goes there. By now, an unhealthy preoccupation!

On the other hand, Donald Trump to rats makes perfect sense. Not far to go!