The Coming of Ants I
Go to the Ant, thou sluggard:
consider Her ways and be wise.
--Proverbs, 6:6
The pale sun’s slight
Heat can’t warm
The slender threads of life
Or weaving a dream
Of impossible hope,
Melt a messenger’s heart.
You open the apartment
Door into winter darkness,
Blinking snow-blind.
The coffee clock’s
Red digital timer
Pulses migraine.
As the TV flickers on
Announcing Dali’s death,
A telephone book,
Open on the floor,
Surges with black ants
Consuming numbers.
The Coming of Ants II
Among the veteran archaeologists, a story is passed around about a
team of diggers that disappeared from a pre-Columbian site when
there were driver ants in the vicinity after heavy rains. Only a
few artifacts and scattered bones were found.
On the hardened faces,
Cracked by forgotten floods
Stone sun-wheels
Still expose discordances
In the passage of ages.
Evidence remains
On the edge of ruins
For missing time,
For an archaeology of grief
In a faint trace of voices.
It was the same
During the last cataclysm
At Pompeii,
Huddling against the marble
In the cool, familiar smell.
Statues with stained feet
Stand naked in our
Anonymous prints,
While divining proceeds
To decode the planet’s pulse.
When the first black wave
Of ants surges across
The clearing consuming shadows,
Vipers, lizards, scorpions scurry,
Scratching away into silence.
The Coming of Ants III
Go to the Ant, thou sluggard,
consider Her ways and be wise.
--Proverbs, 6:6
The hills are loud
All night long
With the rustle of birds,
And the calls of canine and feline
Rushing toward the rapids.
Investing time with fear,
A shower of hoof-beats
Flow around the dark dawn
Of the first day, leaving
Only the smell of the herds
Seeping through the windows,
Nailed shut, leaving their sweat
And dust and silence behind.
By the second day, a droning
Hum becomes discernible.
After the light slips
Through the slits in the wood wall
And the tense air itches,
We doze fitfully, wakening
To the scratching of hive scouts
First breaching the light gaps
Beneath the doors. We gather
Together and preach the Ant,
Consider Her ways,
And are wise.
“The Coming of Ants I” was published in Transversions in 1995. “The Coming of Ants II” was published in Lynx Journal in 1998.
Edward Baranosky has painted seascapes since he was seven years old. His focus on marine-scapes, draws him back to visit his native home in the American east coast, for inspiration from the North Atlantic. His work emphasizes the present - in the ever-changing moments of water. As a poet-artist he crosses the channels and pathways between the visual and the textual. He continues to exhibit in the United States and Canada. Baranosky owns a small press EAB Publishing, for poetry chapbooks and related material. He currently lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Education: BFA 1969, Rhode Island School of Design, Major in Painting