Ants by Daniel
Hoffman
Theirs is a perfection of pure form. Nobody but has his proper
place and knows it. Everything they do is functional. Each foray in a
zigzag line Each prodigious lifting Of thirty-two times their own
weight Each excavation into the earth's core Each erection Of a crumbly
parapetted tower-
None of these feats is a private pleasure, None of them
done For the sake of the skill alone-
They've got a going concern down there, A full
egg-hatchery A wet-nursery of aphids A trained troop of maintenance
engineers Sanitation experts A corps of hunters And butchers An
army
A queen Each Is nothing without the others, each being a
part Of something greater than all of them put together A purpose which
none of them knows Since each is only The one thing that he does. There
is A true consistency Toward which their actions tend. The ants have
bred and inbred to perfection. The strains of their genes that survive
survive. Every possible contingency Has been foreseen and written into the
plan.
Nothing they do will be wrong.
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