A Day in the Life of a Red Ant Guard

Red bulldog ants construct
particulated houses.

Soldiers poise at city lip,
hairs taughtened to
the waves -
slop feet slapping.

Tsunami-near I come
deliberately as
gumleaves blowing.

Guards outflow.
Jaws clamp,
stings pierce —
a lightning strike at
eyeless, brainless legs.

Air burns
to dancing yell
and fire-scent.

Jammed between skin and socks,
the dead defenders won.

My footfalls die away
and houses hum below.
Up from the tunnels,
new red guards flow.

And the sky did not fall today.

_________________________________________

This poem was first published in the July 20, 2001 · Issue 107 of The HMS Beagle: BioMedNet Magazine, now RIP. The Beagle then was the best science magazine I've ever seen and a credit to Elsevier, interfering with genuine work for many readers, most of whom wouldn't know a Myrmecia gulosa from a Nerello Mascalese. The decision to eliminate the poetry, fiction ("scientists don't read fiction") and humour, and to turn the Beagle into a generic trade mag showed a level of survival intelligence, be it hard-wired or learned, that would need gods to to save the species. No gods appeared, but you can enjoy picking through the Beagle Archives.