Flocking Libretto

ANTS, ZEBRA, GEESE.      

Smaller than a tin tack, a tinker of grit,

salt, skin, sinew and pheromones

I drip, you sniff

you drip, I sniff

scenting a trail - hours long - thousands strong -

tidal in our blindness and barely seen.

A tsunami of clicking jaws and hooked claws

we ants flood a quarter of the earth.

Rollings shadows: a forest of stripes

I ripple of black and white muscle.

Herded together, we litter a hundred zig zags

distorting where you end and I begin.

We lock in a surge of lines, to hypnotise

and blind them, bamboozle them:

so there's no one to chase, no one to rip loose

my stamp - our stampede.

Above one tribe, another: we pull our own bowstring:

so I flow off the tailwind

of you in front, you in front, and you in front of them.

A current of weak-bearing strength

we volley through slipstreams, scraggy but seamless.

A magnetic mob of airborne phosphorescence.

my place alongside your place, as flockmates

we know when to lead, when to rest.

Sarah Hymas