Answers to a Grade-School Biology Test
Answers to a Grade-School Biology Test
Original Text
Earle Birney, Selected Poems 1940-66 (Toronto and Montreal: McClelland and Stewart, 1966): 158.
PS 8503 I75A1 1966 Robarts Library
1To what order do the rats belong?
3Where do they make their homes?
4 In shelters underground
5 below the human border.
6How are their children born?
7 From hydrocarbon links like ours
8 but harder.
9What do they eat?
10 The world's unguarded larder.
11Why are they dangerous to human health?
12 Because our health is their chief danger.
13Have they any use for science?
14 For rodent science, yes;
15 under the street they think
16 and multiply and wait
17 till men have cleared themselves
18 and cats
19 from all the earth that glares at sky
20 and there is freedom to preside
21 for rats.
Notes
2] order: Rodentia. Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2009
Rhyme
Special Copyright
© the Estate of Earle Birney. This poem is protected by Canadian copyright law. RPO is grateful to Madam Justice Wailan Low, the executor of Earle Birney's literary estate, for permission to publish. Anyone wishing to reprint this poem must seek permission in advance from the Birney estate.