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While we painted our walls by our driveway,

a boy encased an ant forevermore

beneath a drop of paint. Thence, every day,

I’d wander by, and, on that droplet, pore.

That little, nearly massless creature was,

to me, almost, one worshipped and revered.

Almost? I cannot lie. He was the cause

of many reverenced thoughts, and thoughts adhered.

His tomb, a place for pondering, for pause,

for wondering what was and would not be.

For lingering on great, eternal laws,

and what his sacrifice would mean for me.

The loss of one small ant sung hate for hate

into a boy’s philosophy and fate.

~~~

He seeks but all my gaze and all my thought,

and every musing thought, and every cast

that my eyes make when I am, with him, caught,

until I’ve gazed, and thought, at last, my last.

He is a company of every pole:

once cold, and once the very heat of day,

and forces you to take the selfsame role,

and let him have his every whim’s which way.

For he will never share what’s on his mind

unless you do exactly what he wills.

He knows all things, but will only be kind

and fill you in, if you fly with his thrills.

His name, he whispers so reluctantly,

is arduous and strenuous Study.