Daily Citadel: 12/11/2022 - 12/17/2022
12/11/2022
Welcome to the Glass Citadel! This week will focus on revision, with a poem being created the first day and then differently revised each day afterwards. Thank you for reading, and be sure to follow to stay up to date.
12/12/2022
Instagram/Twitter; Initial Poem, "The Two Farmers"
On an ordinary day, while inspecting her
field, the farmer spied a line of ants
carrying away the leaves of her plants.
She muttered about pests all the way to
the shed, where she then found the
insecticide she needed to spray.
…
Walking away from the plants, the ant
carried on its back a piece of a leaf
double its own size.
Through the field, to the mound,
through the tunnels, to the chamber
all to precisely place its leaf in position.
The fungus it was growing would break
the enzymes of the leaf down, and allow
the farmer ants to eat another day.
But, it spied with its eyes, within the
chamber, some microbe that had
stowed away on its foraged leaf.
And, like the first farmer, it grumbled
and muttered about pests before it
sprayed its chemical toxin.
12/13/2022
Instagram; "The Two Farmers (2)"
It’s spring (or maybe it’s autumn)
and I feel,
once again,
as though
Nature grasps me tightly, entwining
Me with Fate.
I say that because of
the leaves carried away
…like by a breeze.
Only the wind is still.
In lines, in columns, they advance:
thousands unyielding,
thousands unrelenting,
thousands selfless.
The ants
decimate the:
plum, peach,
&
pine trees.
The orchard is deforested
in a single night.
There is nothing to do now
but to follow the trail and
drench the colony.
I don’t see the ants as I kill them,
attending to their fields
of fungus fertilized by
the remains of my farm.
I don’t see the ants as I kill them,
spraying their fields,
just like me, to kill the
stowaway microbes.
I don’t see myself in the ants as I kill
them.
Twitter; "The Two Farmers (3)"
The ants spray their toxin to kill the
microbes on the fungus as I spray the
insecticide to kill the pests in the garden.
12/15/2022
Instagram; "The Two Farmers (4)"
There he was, around four o’clock in the
morning, with his muddied jeans and
stained shirt, stealing sips of whiskey as
he poured the pot of boiling water down
the anthill.
‘Jerry, what the fuck are you doing?’
‘Oh hey, didn’t see you there’ was all he
said before the next swig.
Then my eyes explored the scene:
a wave of ants were
desperately clawing
begging
burning
underneath the
relentless stream
that he
poured
so freely.
And I saw the trail of ants, carrying their
leaves they cut from my plum trees back
to their burning colony.
They just kept marching as he kept
pouring.
They’re the ones I can’t forget.
I thought about them all day, as the sun
rose and scalded my skin. Then, it began
to rain as the sun still shone. The water
felt almost
burning.
But I couldn’t go inside:
The orchard needed me.
Twitter; "The Two Farmers (5)"
They don’t run;
they don’t care.
They carry their leaves
proudly
on their backs:
the leaves they stole
from me.
My plum trees
will all
die
but they don’t care:
they have their own
farms to worry about.
I leave them be.
At least, I think,
one farm will still be intact.
12/16/2022
Instagram; "The Two Farmers (6)"
The ant doesn’t know who it steals from.
The ant doesn’t even know it’s stealing.
How could the ant know of the farmer,
waking up to the devastation of an
orchard deforested in a single night?
The shattered coffee mug,
the abstract loss of profits.
When the ant gathers the leaves for its
own farm, it doesn’t know it robs one
just like itself.
Perhaps the farmer will be gentle.
Perhaps she can consider what the ant
cannot.
But we know she will not be.
Twitter; "The Two Farmers (7)"
It must have been raining for hours.
The trees swayed in the wind, howling.
They lost their leaves,
though not to the breeze.
Under the torrent,
their decimation continued.
Ants by the tens
by the hundreds
by the thousands extracted the
leaves from the old farmer’s plum trees.
Under rain they stood strong;
under rain they stood proud.
For hours one ant would march just to
bring one singular shard of a leaf back to
the colony, back to their farms.
And when the old farmer came by the
orchard the next day, would he blame
the ants?
12/17/2022
Instagram; "The Two Farmers (8)"
With the table all set, I invite from my
garden the ant colony’s representative.
With a plum tree leaf suit and a twig
for a cane, it joins me to talk over tea.
Diplomacy with pests is hardly worth my
time, but I’ll humor the things of course.
Their angle is much different than I
expected however, as they point out:
similarities. That’s the word. Similarities
between myself and the ants? Absurd!
But the ant came prepared, with piles
of photos, spreadsheets, and more.
No matter how I try to deny it, I can’t
any longer: they’re farmers, like me.
It’s an odd feeling, seeing their fungus
farms and relating to the pests (???).
It even told me they’ve submitted a
petition to join the local farm bureau!
As we finish our last ounces of tea,
all that it asks for is to be left alone.
Smiling, of course I relent. But, though
we may be similar, I refuse to accept it.
Tomorrow, at dawn, I’ll burn their
anthill and flood their chambers.
The representative knows, of course,
but professionalism is maintained.
Twitter; "The Two Farmers (9)"
It’s on my shoulder, mourning.
It’s witness to my destruction:
2 gallons of burning water down the
anthill, scorched earth at its finest.
‘At least it’s not salt,’ I think to myself.
‘It practically is,’ the ant on my shoulder
replies, its words twisted by tears.
I know the ant is right, but I hate to
admit it. I hate to admit a lot of things.