Surveillance

by Heather Farmer 

I peer through telephoto lens
across the dark face of a rainforest pond
at a rotting log in the glen beyond
and enter the ants’ micro-world

Luxuriant forests of lichen and mosses
grow on the slopes of the bole
A burl rears up—a mountainous knoll—
almost insurmountable

Within the log are citadels
where highly-evolved societies dwell
miners and tunnellers
hunters and gatherers
herders and cultivators
loggers and chippers
builders and carpenters
protective royalists
paranoid loyalists
and armies of soldiers
programmed to demolish
aliens who do not belong

I watch the ants
a long-lens surveillance

Who—with what—watches me?

This poem was created during a workshop with New Shoots: Cairns Botanic Gardens