A Question of Balance

 

 

God, how many ants must I, godlike, kill

Before I stubbornly break their will?

Is a raging question that nettles me ill.

For still they come in a long black line,

So brashly, recklessly crossing mine

That I swear some madness in their design

    Is calling the tune.

How many? O God, I’ve long lost count

    On the dawn side of noon.

 

Come! soldier ants with your feelers drawn

Like little ant bayonets fixed sharply on

Some anticipation you’re hell-bent upon.

A pawn to the antics your mandibles play

Come! march to your appetite’s drum—and pray!

This ravenous morn of your dying day,

    Little ant platoon;

As, one by one, you pay your account

    On the mourn side of noon.

 

Strikes it not a one of you, breath after breath

As you stumble across fresh death after death,

To question the carnage you witnesseth?

Which saith to each in a long black line,

It’s a sign!—of a force most ant unbenign:

Here reigns a power far GREATER, DIVINE,

   —Turn back! ’fore you too lie strewn!…

Yet the number of dead continues to mount

   On the antcide of noon.

 

And some part of me cries: God, where is the sense

In fashioning a creature with no defense

Save for life hereafter’s recompense?

A fence that may be crossed but once

By all your mortal earthly runts

(Nevermore! to forage on earthly hunts?)

    …But You don’t commune.

Leaving nary an answer I may recount

    On the mute side of noon.  

 

Might there be some anticing emolument

For laying down the potent scent

That leads to gross ant nutriment?

Some compliment? with which all hail

The founder of the reeking trail

That leads to hunger’s holy grail:

    Some unwashed spoon? 

…But, like the dead, the questions mount

    On the dread side of noon.

    (God, answer them soon.)

 

And yet, O Lord, hear most this plea:

Deem not my words as heresy

In swearing ants pray not to thee;

For seeing what one ant can heist 

And positing there’s been a tryst

Between the ants and the Antichrist

   —Hold me immune!

And let not Hell’s truth against me count

    On the fell side of noon

    (Reprising the tune):

 

God, how many ants must I righteously kill

To break their God-damned obstinate will?

Is a raging question that nettles me ill.

For still they come in a long black line

So suicidally crossing mine

That I toss all guilt for their mad decline

    That I here impugn;

For Death never grants an ant discount

    On the grave side of noon.

 

Yet still, even now, they steadfastly come

And Oh, God above! what an ungodly sum

Has been crushed neath the finger adjacent my thumb.

Falling numb on the wee lives and spirits within,

So true to their maker, their kith and their kin,

And never once asks: Might it not be a sin

    To cancel Life’s boon?

No. The killing of ants is paramount

    On the cold side of noon.

 

How swift! they fly on thread-thin legs;

How strong! how high! sport they their eggs,

And all their sundry worldly dregs.

Which begs (against the human grain)

To question how their pigmy brain

Could pull them on through deathly pain

    Like the tide by the moon.

No countess, the toll, could ever count

    On the dead side of noon.

    (Just this madcap tune):

 

God, how many aunts must I stubbornly kill

Before my uncles get wise to the chill?

Is a relative question that nettles me ill.

For still they come in a long black line

That is so disgustingly close to mine

I see…myself in their mad design

    And I’m way out of tune!

For the killing of aunts is not my account

    On the mad side of noon.

 

Causing lawyers to croon: The killing of ants

Is a gleeless, feeless miscreance;

But, then again, there’s an ordinance

Saying: Aunts, if they’re killed, that is, if they’ve died,

Leaving nary a note of suicide,

Would then fall on noon’s homicide)

   And I nearly swoon

Thinking that I might be held to account

   On the auntcide of noon

    (Resurrecting the tune):

 

God, how many ants must I leisurely kill

Before all my leisure succumbs to their will?

Is a catholic question that nettles me ill;

For still they come in a long black line

—In turn to eternity each I consign

Till I’m troubled about this karma of mine

     —Lord, lest it come soon,

This humble confession should square my account

    On the meek side of noon

    (Thus sparing the tune):

 

God, how many ants must I stubbornly kill

Before I, madly, succumb to their will?

Is a nettlesome question that ages me ill.

For still they come in a long black line And...................................................................................

.................I see (the genius in their design!):

Their numbered power is greater than mine!

   O Lord, what a tune!

And my whole life’s question teeters upon

   The crown, like a spoon…

And falls on what I now see amounts

    To the down side of noon.