Thursday 17 February 2011

Ten Ants Only


Around the carpark of a block of flats in inner-urban Melbourne, signs say `Ten ants only’. The painter had mistakenly spelt ‘tenants’ with two ns, then painted over the second one.

The signs say ‘ten ants only’.
Passers-by long ago stopped wondering what they mean.
They ascribe the words to life’s imponderable truths:
like why some babies are born with hair and others bald,
and the movements of clouds.

Once I gathered twelve ants
and let them spill from my palm to the ground.
Two of them convulsed horribly,
died.

Sometimes I’ve seen people meditating before the signs.
They say Zen teachers use them as koans,
the novice’s journey to non-attainment enhanced
by the bite of gravel on his backside.

Some people say they have seen the face of a woman
when the light slants on the letters in a certain way;
that she weeps and miracles occur.

I’m sceptical, but not like the grim man who shouted
‘Tenants only! Not ten ants.’
An old woman sweeping the gravel said ‘Silence!’
And the ant trails weaving through the minds
of the young people on the ground stopped,
briefly, before resuming –
ten ants, not one more.


Published in Wet Ink magazine, September 2009

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