Anthill

The mountains, once the only spires

when their farsightedness was mistaken for foresight.

They, silenced now, can only watch 

the aimless graze of a goat and the meander

of the burnt-topped orchids that tread them

and presage nothing, 

so leave your prophecies behind.

Our predilection for predictions might urge us 

in a variety of directions - 

even an ant might forsake his swarm of compatriots

to cross a lowland river on a comfrey leaf

as a boat, to climb the intractable rise

of rock and stone on the other side,

to wonder what exists beyond the clouds,

and perhaps he will die trying. 
 

The goat, his slit eyes narrow, a Heraclitus,

he understands this creature can never traverse 

the same water twice, will not imagine this same scene

twice, but the ant has had his own cosmic visions

of formic kings of forests and the ascension 

of earthy towers and he will risk 

any prospect for this idea.

An idea that has fastened to him, that he bears

as a swatch of green, cut to a portable size

yet still ten times his own. This ant is made of myths,

he takes the frozen breath of the air

and snaps it like a twig, he fashions swords

from frosty knives that glisten as he tells them

they are stars in their own verdant firmament,

and that he knows that love is everything,

and really, love is all there's ever been. 
 

And this thought is more potent than any of the metal men,

melts away their hard slices of sides and corners,

fires their lies, buries them in the concrete

of their anti-natural fantasies.

He sleeps amongst the pale bristles

of his makeshift ship and asks his dreams

about those snow-capped summits each night again

because every morning wakes him with a different answer.

Image from pixabay.