There were grass-hoppers once, in these fields of green.

Leaf-hoppers too and a myriad other tiny wing'ed ones.

Now bees fidget fretfully along the hedgerows.

Lady-bugs, now only the twelve-spot greenhouse slaves.

Monsanto's beetles badgering them as they fiddle.

These ditches that once housed frogs and musk-rat, ferocious diving beetles,

The sky absent the wheeling martins, the boisterous larks.

Gone the pests, I rue the dearth,

bring me back my mud, my earth.

Never was I annoyed by them, always an ally that buggy thing,

Who yet knows how the June bugs sing?