How Not to Have a Revolution
The elephant went rogue in the forest,
stepping on the ant hills,
destroying everything for the sheer pleasure of destruction.
The ants began to mobilize.
They organized a thousand little Armies of Resistance,
each with powerful leaders and Solid Plans.
Here is a Truth:
There were enough ants in the forest
to carry that old elephant away.
All their united strength and energy
could have saved the forest.
Instead, things went south
pretty much from the beginning.
The ants could not check their tribalism.
They were suspicious of all outsiders,
even (particularly) among their own kind.
On the ruined mounds of their separate anthills
they began to call, not for the removal of the elephant,
but for the annihilation of enemy tribes.
Only when enemy tribes were dealt with
would it be possible to remove the elephant, they said.
By the time the ants had dealt with their own internal battles,
the elephant had won the day,
and the forest was utterly destroyed.
(Today’s Prompt from Poetic Asides was to write a Directions Poem.)
Mockingbird Chronicles 