The poem that haunts my nightmares!

March 1, 2008 9:02 AM

Help me find a poem I read over 10 years ago and have hazy memories of! It's about termites that eat steel.

Does this ring any bells? A man wanders into a decaying cityscape, and at the end of the poem, he sees some termites and wants to keep them away from wood, or something, and an old-timer tells him: "They don't eat wood any more," and pulls from its jaws a glistening crumb of steel.

I've been thinking of this poem for days and haven't been able to successfully google it. I think I read it in my 8th grade literature anthology, if that helps any.

posted by InnocentBystander to writing & language (3 comments total)

Metropolitan Nightmare by Stephen Vincent Benet. You can Google it.
posted by zadcat at 9:45 AM on March 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

I lurve you, zadcat.
posted by InnocentBystander at 9:52 AM on March 1, 2008

I think we might have to add Benet to that select group of poets who get there ahead of the the rest of us.

Bacteria in the guts of termites are the true digesters of the wood they eat, but the bacteria that eat steel have yet to negotiate the necessary contract-- or perhaps they've simply decided to eliminate the middleman:

Some chemical reactions in which bacteria participate are harmful rather than helpful to industry. Bacteria are major agents of metal corrosion (wearing away) through the formation of rust, especially on metals containing iron. During the early stages of rust formation, hydrogen is produced, and it acts to slow the rusting process. However, certain bacteria use the hydrogen as a nutrient with the result that they greatly speed up rust formation.
posted by jamjam at 10:52 AM on March 1, 2008