What goes up must come down

We can’t tell what mistake

it was that wiped out the dinosaurs and their like

after lording it so long

(far longer than man has done).

Whatever it was it was irreparable.

Also inevitable?

Well, that again’s a thing we can hardly tell.

But now that we watch ourselves

contriving against our wills

a no less ineluctably certain end

for triumphant humankind,

it does look probable

that the drive to dominance

is linked by more than chance

with a lemming counterwish,

that in that case as in this

(man and dinosaur)

it is some built-in device,

some failsafe mechanism,

that hurries us down to drown offshore.