The Anthill

A poem by Lorne Laliberte

Foreword:

This is one of my favorite poems. It started as an attempt to write a poem in a specific form (ABCB), although it also follows (ABAB) at places. I'm not sure what compelled me to write about this childhood memory, but it tells a story that still touches my heart to this day.

I found an anthill in the ground,
The sun was shining bright that day,
And from beneath the sink I found
A spray bottle with which to play.

Thus armed, I went back to the hill,
Which really was a busy place,
Hoping to cause more business still
To this industrious insect race.

I sat before the tiny maze
To watch the tiny things go 'bout,
And then with curious mischief sprayed
The holes to bring more insects out.

The blasts of water churned the ground,
Clogging holes and making mud,
And all the ants that were around
Were swept away amidst the flood.

They rolled and flipped before the rain
Of water I continued sending,
While other workers tried in vain
To reach the holes that needed mending.

But as I watched the bustling scene
I felt a strange tickling sensation -
An ant had climbed upon my knee,
And thus attracted my attention.

At first I thought to jump away,
But laughed at such a foolish fear!
Its harmlessness led me to stay,
And then a whisper caught my ear:

Soft as wind, but with less form,
The strange new thought caused me to start,
It did not come from in my head,
It had been formed inside my heart.

And suddenly I realized,
This little ant upon my knee,
Although it was of smaller size,
Had been made
             by the same God
                            as me.

Afterword:

I really have to write more poems from my own life. The amount of detail I can recall when I read this poem is incredible. I can smell the freshly mown grass, see the row of young cottonwoods like a median through the highway of rough-tilled dirt that encircled the small pasture. I know exactly where the anthill was, and -- amazingly -- I can almost feel what my body and mind felt like at that age. The details I remember have remained exactly as they were seen through those young eyes.

The tone of this poem reminds me of Chat with a Caterpillar by Robert W. Cumberland, a Canadian poet I was introduced to through an old school book I found in my grandmother's attic. It had belonged to my Mom, and was called Poetic Experience: An Anthology of Poems for Senior Students, by Bert Case Diltz. The copy I have is ©1955 and looks older. I cherish it to this day for Chat with a Caterpillar and Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken.

Last modified: November 15, 2003
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