Poetry Monday :: Ants :: Updated and now with Poem

Poetry Monday is a challenge, normally hosted by Diane at On the Border. But from Monday, January 8, 2024, Messymimi and I have conspired to keep the chair warm for her, as she's taking a break due to health issues. We will each set the topics for one month, I began with January, Mimi is supplying for February, and so on until Diane returns.
Here's the March prompts:

March 4: Swan Lake (or one of the words)
March 11: Distancing
March 18: Meaning
March 25: Happy News

Today's topic is Ants - now what? Nothing ... or at best a stretchy connection and I think an incoherent post - please bear with me. More to follow I hope. .

Today I biked through the woods once more. I heard the blue tits singing their spring songs, I heard the woodpeckers busy at work and the geese honking from above. I saw the buds on many shrubs, the sprouting plants and the blue skies behind naked trees. I noticed the catkins from hazel and alder and decided to pick some on my way home to test for plant dyeing. I saw the brook with lots of busy and noisy water. I also met several people there - all absorbed in conversation - not with someone at their side, but via mobile devices. I wondered. Are people ever really alone any more? Do they ever notice the peace of the woods? Do they even see where they go?

Ants are social insects - but I think people are not, not all the time at least.

Forest bathing is a new fad, but I think I have been practising this since my youth - and  this reminded me of a poem I wrote back then. Let me see if I can get a translation made - but it won't happen today, as I'm too tired.

This is - not a translation precisely, because the same words do not rhyme in diferent languages - but a re-do of a poem I wrote when I was 14 years old.

When people are stupid
and parents are bad
when siblings are teasing
when I get all mad
I jump on my bike
I go for a hike
I sit by a pond
I look at a frond.
I find my quiet in the forest.

I look at the birds and
I hear their crows
I stare at the duckweed
Like silver it glows
I sit by my pond
I look at a frond
Then after a while
Get back to my bike
I find my peace in the forest.

- - - - -

Next Monday: Swan Lake (or one of the words)