Busy Little Black Ant

Busy little black ant under your heavy load,

Where does your steady trail take you?

The tree’s roots are where your family lives.

Colony teamwork has built a network of

Winding tunnels and gaping miniature caverns

Far beneath the ground.

There, you raise little rice-like eggs

That are the next generation’s

Diligent members of the ant community.

I watch and learn

As you go about busy errands

Oblivious to the giant world about you,

Your little ‘Empire’ rules.

The idea for the poem “Busy Little Black Ant” came for a request for a poem about a creature. My insight was to compare the ant’s industrious work ethics and sense of family and teamwork, to the quality of life that I experience. Some of the techniques I used were the simile (example: “rice-like eggs”) and the metaphor of the “busy little black ant” who is personified by giving him a family and a home. My structure or focus was how life can be organized and orderly just like the “winding tunnels” and “gaping miniature caverns” system that the ants have created for their home. The giant’s world relates to the universe and how big it is. We have no control over it, only over ourselves. We must do what it takes to make life go around.