Aerial Trouble

Say, you,

Fellows who

Know so much astrology,

And every other ology,

You who can reel off by the mile

Law, science and politics, please tell

Us, who don’t know anything well,

What will happen after awhile

Regarding travel by and by,

Private domains up in the sky,

Trespassing perhaps

By foreign chaps,

Or dropping articles of freight

Upon our real estate,

Or cocos perchance,

If we neglect to glance

Upwards and round about

Every time we go out?

How far up in the sky, I say,

Does a fellow own, anyway?

What’s to be the rate

For trespassing? Please state.

And then again,

When

Men

Sail over and drop a hook and lift

A melon and drift

Away

Who’s to pay?

Who’s going to watch plains and woods

For smugglers of foreign goods?

Who’s going to invent,

     And it’s time to begin

A way to prevent

     John Chinaman from coming in?

And suppose a man wants to blast

     Some quarry stone

And he hast

     One of his own,

And the stones fly

Up in the sky

And hit an airship going by,

How will he stand

With the laws of the land?

Who’ll have the right of way,

Who’ll look after the scorches, say?

Will there be aerial sports

Of all sorts

So we’ll have to duck

Or be struck

With a bat

And knocked flat?

There’s a score

Or more

Of questions I’d like to ask

But yield the talk,

And wait until these

Are answered, please.

June 11, ‘09