Ants must wonder if I have emotions
How could I?
Ending them in one short motion
Ants must think i'm such a creep
Who am I?
Why do I stare so long and deep?
If a giant walked up to your home
And refused to give you time alone
If he smashed your city on his own
Would it not chill you to the bone?
Those brave little *******.

ANTLIKE STRENGTHS
A poem by Tricia Hague-Barrett 1993

An ant carries its large load across the cracks
in the path on its way homeward
Nothing gets in its way
Nothing prevents him from succeeding,

If only I could have seen the end in the beginning
where struggles are frequent but passable,
testing but not breaking my resolve to give in
to the desparate feelings of loneliness, tiredness.

Ant-like, I too have to learn to carry the heavy load,
The Teaching load, the Administrative load,
carry it across potholes, ditches, mountains
and through distant valleys of calmness.

Turbulent tests, stumbling stones,
each there to guide me along the way
Like guardian angels, each one
Heralding the Dawn of a New Day.

Ends.
(C) 1993

When you took our family tree up by the root my heart got tangled in the mess. Ants crawl under the door carrying away the branches laying on the floor. Now there is a hole in the middle of the room that goes down six feet from where I walk with my heavy shoes. Old seeds fade to dust like our memories like our family. I try planting the fresh ones in my chest but I fail to fill them with liquid because all the water inside me falls from my eyes to the sheets to floor where it has made an ocean of forgotten memories. Hopefully the ants will soon take the door with them, so I can swim to shore.

Am I the only one who wonders,
what ants do all the time?
When they walk seemingly without a pattern,
do they know where they are going?
What do ants think of us, do we scare them,
or are we not importand enough to care about?
How do they communicate?
Can they be sad?
I keep thinking about the ants?
Do they ever think like this, about the flies? Or spiders, or butterflies?
Who will ever know...

Cars march dutifully like ants
On strings of suspended steel
Purposeful like tight rope walkers
And travel in white boxes
in the morning

the people swarm like ants
that’s what they say, isn’t it?
but they’re not like ants
at all, really.

ants have a purpose, a structure
they scrabble across the pavement as the sun beats down
with a common goal
carrying huge leaves between them
thousands of times their weight

nor are people like wildebeest
who stampede wildly across the plains:
LIONS! RUN!
their purpose is logical
their goal is survival
but people

people swarm in great swarthy swathes
sweating their way through the summer
slipping and
shivering their way through the snow

there are so many of them, and
their goals are so individual
so complex

not for them the ingrained logical processions
not for them the sole desperate stampede away from danger
no.

they have a society
have a culture
and wrapped in the cloaks of their conforms and their norms
they slither through the daylight
take up the space around them
give no heed to how they’re filling it
or who must take it next.

it’s why i like the early mornings
and the late night times
when the world is empty
barren
silent and pure
untainted by the congestion of the day.

My body mind and soul, ache in disgust thinking of your character, but your words are so sweet like sugar to ants

I squash ant that sinks teeth,
Biting my enormous otherworldly knee
Amidst fray of fleshy fingerprint
Most heroic exoskeleton betrays
A life ended,
Should i wail upon battlefield?
Come aliens forth on scale of mighty gods
What fire
What twist of fate they might bring
Upon silly little
Pink and squishy me
I shall name him,
Heroic Anton.

We little light footed ants
are free from  giant egos
as we throw them off and live
within our tiny bodies
And we find that we have
so much room,
so much room.
As we keep gravitating in
a  love towards each other.

We work within an almost
sacrificial love for one another
This love so strong that
permeates our bodies it willingly
carries many times its weight freely. 
As we find a freedom in a devotion
as we build a great life together.

Sometimes we let go of understanding
the world and humbly live close to
what feels a boundless earth.
As we realize with a beautiful
simplicity that much of the world
is above.
And we understand however big you
build your ego God and the big picture
have an understanding so much greater.

We see however elaborate your system
however beautiful your tower it is the
lubricating love which enables the whole
thing work.
We live with perfect honor with each other
as we build our empire on stone which
will never crumble.
Many giant egos show us disregard as they
think nothing of stamping on us.
But being humble beings we simply slip
between the many cracks of this world and
remain completely unharmed.      


We know it is the being without ego
that finds himself so surrounded with
so much space and finds so very easy
to find his place.
Empty of ego we are drawn together
with so much love for one another
we just cannot get enough of each other.

As we build great structures almost invisible
to us which can only really be seen by giant
beings like Gods we feel our importance.
And as we work for this higher picture we
we cannot see we all merge together within
an unquestionable trust that always serves
the greater.

Living on a tiny point we feel the worlds
stresses collapsing infinity to a point.
Bursting balloons all pressures released
our souls sits back on energetic sofas.
Sitting on this micro dot we dance and rest
upon this junction spot.

So as we fumble and tumble around within
our daily routine choosing not to be tall
but to be born small.
Within a endless love threaded through million
of busy connecting little legs we work closely
together.
And in a deep cooperation we feel a
fusion as together we feel complete
in one giant heartbeat.    

There is so much to be admired in the
beautiful busy working ant.