Ladybug's Children

[AlienGirl]

Ladybug's Children
("It's going too fast. We will burn."--James Lovelock, inventor of the Gaia Hypothesis, on global warming.)

and so I think of ladybug's children
looking like miniature dragons, all fierce grasp
and bright warning, ugly babies
stripping the tree of its aphids
and I think
of their tiny fragile feet curling
their little dragon tails shrivelling
little dragon eyes going dim
the orange tongues eating little dragons

and I think
of the song about the roof
and how we don't need no water and
I look up

the roof is blue
but the flames, the flames are all around us