I’m kneeling.
Not thought of kneeling before
my laptop.
Have to. The table is low.
It’s a stool actually, not a table.
An ant. A very busy ant.
Runs up the screen, climbs up
the mountain of Jade Mountains
then off across the top of the screen.
Again.
Viewing in profile. Now down
the side of the screen. So active.
I start to wonder if it’s looking
for something. Or is it on a mission
of some kind. Perhaps it’s one of those
scout ants I’ve been told about.
WATCH OUT for the scout ant!
Beware! Be aware.
There will be a marching army
behind it. If it’s worth their while
to march this way. But I know better,
now,
not to give them any cause at all.
A whiff of something sweet, something
of anything. An invitation?
Will bring on an invasion.
Thinking about ants. Talking about ants. Using military words. Invasion. Marching. Mission. But who am I to know what they are up to. They are simply making a living. Best way they can. Arn’t we all.
….uh! There it is again making
a decent south to the task bar!
Across the rocky key pads and….
down my sleeve! Or
into the headphone jack?
Yes, kneeling before my laptop, as I still am, seems to help. With? With connecting ‘with’. Which is just about what my writing for Jade Mountains is all about.
I don’t like to think about it however
I think that ant is now down
at my foot. So perhaps it is time
to get up and take a walk in
those wonderful woods. Where I walk
with those four Bull Elk.
Not that I’ve caught sight of them.
Yet.
However. They are non the less there.
Just not in sight.
Like you.
….uh! There goes that ant again
heading for the rocks.
Over the mountains. Deft climber.
Now. Down behind the screen.
Again.
Where you all are!
Sitting.
Still.
Always still.
This poem touched something I can’t quite put my finger on.
In its way it reminded me of the columns of ants that march across the studio floors and the streets of Larnaka in Cyprus. I’m not there at the moment BTW. It had me thinking about life and how we all, ants included, get on with it in our own way.
Then another thought. I went for a walk near Grasmere the other day in glorious weather and thinking that at least in England I don’t have those tropical mosquitoes to contend with. That evening I got home to discover something had bitten me. That’ll teach me to get complacent.
Sorry if I’ve rambled on a bit here.
Norman