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Stephen Vincent Benet - Metropolitan NightmareStephen Vincent Benet - Metropolitan Nightmare
Work rating: Medium


I rained quite a lot, that spring. You woke in the morning And saw the sky still clouded, the streets still wet, But nobody noticed so much, except the taxis And the people who parade. You don`t, in a city. The parks got very green. All the trees were green Far into July and August, heavy with leaf, Heavy with leaf and the long roots were boring and spreading, But nobody noticed that but the city gardeners And they didn`t talk.                     Oh, on Sundays, perhaps, you`d notice: Walking through certain blocks, by the shut, proud houses With the windows boarded, the people gone away, You`d suddenly see the queerest small shoots of green Poking through cracks and crevices in the stone And a bird-sown flower, red on the balcony, But then you made jokes about grass growing in the streets And politics and grass-roots –– and there were songs And gags and a musical show called "Hot and Wet." It all made a good box for the papers. When the flamingo Flew into a meeting of the Board of Estimate, The new Mayor acted at once and called the photographers. When the first green creeper crawled over the Brooklyn Bridge, They thought it was ornamental. They let it stay. There was the year the termites came to New York And they don`t do well in cold climates –– but listen, Joe, They`re only ants and ants are nothing but insects. It was funny and yet rather wistful, in a way (As Heywood Broun pointed out in the World-Telegram,) To think of them looking for wood in a steel city. It made you feel about life. It was too divine. There were funny pictures by all the smart, funny artists And Macy`s ran a terribly clever ad: "The Widow`s Termite" or something.                     There was no Disturbance. Even the Communists didn`t protest And say they were Morgan hirelings. It was too hot, Too hot to protest, too hot to get excited, An even, African heat, lush, fertile and steamy, That soaked into bones and mind and never once broke. The warm rain fell in fierce showers and ceased and fell. Pretty soon you got used to its always being that way. You got used to the changed rhythm, the altered beat, To people walking slower, to the whole bright Fierce pulse of the city slowing, to men in shorts, To the new sun-helmets from Best`s and the cops` white uniforms, And the long noon-rest in the offices, everywhere. It wasn`t a plan or anything. It just happened. The fingers tapped the keys slower, the office-boys Dozed on their benches, the bookkeeper yawned at his desk. The A. T. & T. was the first to change the shifts And establish a siesta-room, But they were always efficient. Mostly it just Happened like sleep itself, like a tropic sleep, Till even the Thirties were deserted at noon Except for a few tourists and one damned cop. They ran boats to see the big lilies on the North River But it was only the tourists who really noticed The flocks of rose-and-green parrots and parrakeets Nesting in the stone crannies of the Cathedral. The rest of us had forgotten when they first came. There wasn`t any real change, it was just a heat spell, A rain spell, a funny summer, a weather-man`s joke, In spite of the geraniums three feet high In the tin-can gardens of Hester and Desbrosses. New York was New York. It couldn`t turn inside out. When they got the news from Woods Hole about the Gulf Stream, The Times ran an adequate story. But nobody reads those stories but science-cranks. Until, one day, a somnolent city-editor Gave a new cub the termite yarn to break his teeth on. The cub was just down from Vermont, so he took the time. He was serious about it. He went around. He read all about termites in the Public Library And it made him sore when they fired him.                     So, one evening, Talking with an old watchman, beside the first Raw girders of the new Planetopolis Building (Ten thousand brine-cooled offices, each with shower) He saw a dark line creeping across the rubble And turned a flashlight on it.                     "Say, buddy," he said, "You`d better look out for those ants. They eat wood, you know, They`ll have your shack down in no time."                     The watchman spat. "Oh, they`ve quit eating wood," he said, in a casual voice, "I thought everyone knew that."                       -- and reaching down, He pried from the insect`s jaw the bright crumb of steel.
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