Anthill
by Vernie Lynn DeMille
Shin height
Your pyramid stands
As I stride like a giant
Amid the dry grass
Of a side meadow.
Red and black
I watch you scatter
Across the field floor
On your way to lay up
The last provisions.
There is no hurry
In your movements
And I must conclude
That your pantries are full
And your pupae fed.
Two of you
Wander slowly
Back and forth across
The domed top of your temple,
Like thatcher’s finishing their work.
Unhurried
They return to the small opening,
Into what I know must be
A dark and comforting canyon
Of passages and rooms.
It would be easy
To destroy your home
And what would it matter
To me, a giant beside your palace,
With the power of death in my feet?
But there is one;
One lone ant
Carrying a pebble twice his size
Up the side of the hill,
With his mouth.
He stumbles
But keeps his grip.
He flails his front legs
To feel for the ground before him,
And keep his footing.
He falls
Again and again
But keeps going until
He reaches a spot near the peak
And places his pebble carefully.
He taps it
With his front legs
And heads back down,
Stopping to greet another
And tangle antennae for a moment.
I look down
At the top of your dome
And the pebble is lost
In the mass of other pebbles;
But it was his labor.
He moved a mountain,
One I tower over,
But it is still a mountain;
And I quiet my feet.
There is no death in them now.
I glance up
At a pale moon in a blue sky,
And wonder what my towers look like
To God in His endless Heavens.
How small an anthill I have built.
But it is mine.
It is my labor,
This field of grass and sunshine
And children with open books
And pencils set to paper.
I pray
He stills His feet
And gives me time
To place a few more pebbles
Before the winter comes.
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