To a Rogue Ant

I watch you as you veer from the beaten path,
off of that all-too-trampled trail of industry,
noticing, too, that nobody else seems to notice.

A sudden left sends you cavorting across ivy
and down that road less traveled, perhaps it
was merely impulse, but here we are anyway.

Here today you pause, basking in sunshine,
stopping long enough to smell the poppies,
to contemplate greenery and wild flowers.

To leisurely lick at your lovely body and then
to raise yourself to the cooling breeze as you,
now refreshed, ponder your next movement.

Maybe it is the shame of guilty pleasures that
causes you to turn repentant in your tracks and
momentarily mull a return to what is expected.

Who knows what all the others think, perhaps
they think you’re lost, but I would rather think
that instead, you are probably lost in thought.

Then after the slightest of hesitations a decision
has been reached, and as you break away I know
you decided never to dig another anthill again.