Ants

Sped up with sun, racing to escape the season
Ants know their business
As they move in purposeful bursts
Run – stop. Run – stop. Examine.

Determined they move back and forth
Between military bases
Armoured, building site-ready
Prepared to deal with interlopers,
Drag a fat moth single-handed
Back to the communal larder
Even to dissect a fellow ant, half-crushed
And return it for some unimaginably unsentimental fate.

A comrade met matter of fact
A chemical exchange
Waving legs and antennae
Accomplished in half a second
The equivalent of a good afternoon
Natter spent discussing horses

Ants lead parallel lives
Which we neither interrupt nor follow
As they move back and forth along their highway
Certain of it, as we are certain of tolls and bridges,
Ice creams and fridges