An ant explores the bathroom floor,
a geometrical, symmetrical
unbroken grid of three-inch squares.

He meanders, arcs and curves
across the tedious plain, uniformly beige,
crosshatched by riverbeds of grout

running straight to the baseboard horizon.
Subtly, resolutely, he dips and climbs each one,
hesitates at an intersection, a pitted crossroad,

and moves on. He is the advance guard,
a scout, foraging for food, some sweet or starch,
or a tiny twig or piece of leaf for the nest.

Tomorrow, if he finds treasure, he’ll broadcast it
with built-in antennae, and this field will swarm
with thousands of brothers, a Woodstock of ants.

Now he stops to regard the rounded black mountain
of my left shoe, breaking the terrain.
He turns and continues his random navigation,

while I sit silently, looking on,
omnipotent, a porcelain-throned buddha,
who has let him live another day.

09/22/2001

Posted on 09/22/2001
Copyright © 2024 Bruce W Niedt