I first learned life wasn’t fair
when I discovered ant hills along our driveway,
millions of sand grains shaped into miniature brown volcanos.
Some ants trudged uphill in long meandering lines,
carrying beetle legs, breadcrumbs, and fat nuggets of corn,
while others streamed out of their holes to seek more.
One ant lay crippled.
Another lugged a dead brother home.
Another stood on the tip of a blade of grass,
antennae trembling with news of the universe.
When I dropped a gigantic bread crumb on their mound,
two ants danced around it
until a phalanx of ants arrived to carry it away.
I knew I could kill any one of them,
or the whole tribe, with one foot.
But I didn’t.
And I never showed their cities to the boys next door.
I didn’t realize I’d someday feel as tiny as those ants.
But the more I watch TV,
or spend time in hospitals and rest homes,
the more ant-like I become.
I, too, have sensitive feelers,
and carry loads bigger than my body.
I, too, try to drag the sick and the dead.
back where they belong, to homes they helped to build.
I don’t know why I do it,
beyond not wanting them to live, or die, alone.