I was never more astounded

in my young and carefree life

than on the day I witnessed

evolution in flight,

as the black mass

took to the Selly Park air

and shrouded the sun as one,

shimmering, splitting the heavens,

blowing my mind as I peered

into the cracks of the corporation

pavement of Manilla Road,

an ice cream slowly dripping

and making sticky fingers,

evolution in flight,

evolution with black angel wings,

as ants crawled, stuttered, their heartbeats

increased by sunshine and the call

of maturity and unfurled

and my eyes opened wide,

opened to the scene of beautiful harmony

whilst swatting the buggers from my eyes

as I got in their way.

 

The ants progress from underground,

Morlock in nature, scurrying, busy,

pulsing as one, one mind, hive mind,

all for the common good

and not adverse to cannibalism

when it suited them,

as they flew to catch the rays of sun

and chewed and bit my skin

as an in-flight meal…

and still I watched on,

my ant farm in glass the previous summer

a faded memory, broken in clumsy fall,

a trip on the uneven stone

between garden and shed; they fell to Earth,

shrouded in shattering glass and died,

not like these beauties, flying ant day, replacing

the butterfly for me as a moment of wonder

in the Selly Park sun.

 

Ian D. Hall 2016