.             AT HOME - in  THE PLANET OF THE ANTS Our home’s a virtual paradise In retirement, our retreat Its become a kind of sanctuary Here the birdlife, quite replete. Just one of God’s little acres That slopes down to a riverbed Overlooking broad meadows And a distant watershed. Riparian vegetation And white majestic gums All part of the lovely landscape Our house is set among. Contorted limbs and foliage Set swaying in the breeze And many shapes their shadows cast To the humming of the bees. A panorama quite dynamic Ever changing day and night From early in the dawning Shrouded mists of white. The filtered rays of sunshine When the fiery orb’s oblique Through painted trunks and branches Throw long shadows at our feet. Where the dewdrops are a’twinkle Set on spider’s gossamer rings While cicadas’ add their chorus To a host of lesser things. Bright butterfly wings a flutter Randomly meander by And birds of every feather Adorn the azure sky.	.  Those birds, and all their antics I’ll recount some other time From little wrens to raptors then Described in verse and ryhme. The stealthy fox by moonlight Startles the cackling hen For his destination probably is Neighbour Rene’s poultry pen. Here live some other scaly things Like geckos, lizards, skinks And their larger legless cousins Slide through the grass methinks. And we’ve solved one huge dilemma That of Frances Whiting’s frog He now sits outside the doorstep Like a well content pet dog. Of humanity we’re reminded                     By the background highway hum Distant sounds of trains and aeroplanes Through Nature’s musings come. While on the motor mowing Willy Wagtail flits abreast And the Dragons wait by the river Bound on their insect quest. When all chores are completed And evening shadows spread From golden glow to flaming bow The light of day is shed. On the other far horizon The colour of  Sun’s fading ray Great cumulus columns rising Herald storm clouds on the way.	Then in the gathering sunset Heaven’s window closed And storm clouds drenched in evidence The moon and stars deposed. With the crashing sound of thunder Our mortal senses blurr And in the menacing atmosphere Primeval forces stirr. The night flashed white, a blinding light And rising through the same Full many shapes, not shadows were In mole like mountains came. A little after sunrise I look outside aghast A thousand times a thousand mounds Are strewn across our grass. What unseen abomination            Has caused the earth erupt To overnight proliferate                And all our lawns corrupt. So many excavations Left piles of red-brown mud Which through the house when trampled Leave trails like thick dried blood. As the culprit, we discovered    A diminutive brown ant But Oh! such countless numbers Could make a sane man rant. Unlike his many cousins This ant dwells quietly underground And though unseen, his numbers vast         In the sub terrain abound .                         .....................................................................	I try to clear the carnage But soon the mowers clogged And bouncing over mudhills Gets very nearly bogged. And you can’t become complacent After weeks of sunny skies When all is green and tranquil For what underneath belies. I know I should be grateful To look out on cloudy skys For without refreshing rainfall Everything surely dies. But its now all too apparent That our verdant widespread lawns After each and every rainstorm Are left pockmarked when it dawns. With senses thus incited Well - you know this means war! We can’t abide or tolerate This provocation at our door. In blind exasperation The battle lines are drawn For a campaign soon defeated And Ants still rule the lawn. To claim - 'The highest species' There may now be some doubt For these elusive little critters Have got us figured out. Perhaps we’re just mere mortals  That are living in a trance And residing under sufferance                       In this Planet of the Ants.              Rodd Sherwin   ©
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