by Ralph La Rosa
after and with Thoreau
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| "Hawk Eye" by Tom Tomorrow at The Nib |
The main lesson from Afghanistan is that
the ‘war on terror’ does not work
—Mary Kaldor, The Guardian, August 24, 2021
Ants battled on my Walden woodpile,
Small reds against much larger blacks.
The wood was strewn with dying and dead:
Imperialist blacks and republican reds.
A red clamped on a black ant’s chest
Was shaken till a back leg broke.
I watched another red assault
The black ant’s back and gnaw his neck—
An Achilles avenging his Patroclus?
The black destroyed all the reds’ limbs,
Lopped off their heads and left with them.
Who won this internecine bellum?
Most warrior Myrmidons soon dead,
Ant squads claimed corpses, black and red.
Author’s Note: This poem attempts to be a microcosm of Thoreau’s discussion in Walden, Chapter 12: “Brute Neighbors.”
Like Thoreau, Ralph La Rosa finds little to commend ants inhumanity to ants.