There was an ant colony in my backyard
Red ants.
Large, not angry, just busy.
When I was a kid, I poked at them with a stick
watched them go mad, swarming around
searching out their aggressor
I even went so far as to dig
deep into their lairs, searching
out their queens and larvae,
to satisfy my curiosity about these
creatures
They found me now and then
leaving welts that should have
taught me my lesson: that what
I was doing was wrong, not only
bad karma (that’s a selfish reason
not to do something) but for the
simple fact that I was
destroying their homes,
causing them fear and panic,
I was treating them
as less than.
There is so much that might
be learned from our relationship
with the ants.
narinda heng 