The Super-Organism
Red towers on the Afrikkan plains,
Shaped from the belly of the earth.
An ingenious organism lurks beneath;
Labouring at life.
At the heart lives the Queen,
A fat controller,
A factory farmer of eggs.
At her side: The King.
A devoted partner.
A father of plenty.
The workers form the core,
Toiling tirelessly.
Small, yet perfectly formed.
The soldiers guard the Tower.
Steely menace,
Serrated pincers - protecting their Queen.
No light can penetrate this world,
And the air is damp,
With water harvested from the deep.
In this dark place,
Lives a super-organism:
A billion-strong composite parts
Serving their Queen.
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In case you are interested, this was inspired by a book I re-read recently called the 'Soul of the White Ant' by Eugene Marais. He was a journalist, lawyer, poet and amateur naturalist and devoted part of his life to the study of the 'white ant' or termite. His theory is that the termite colony is in fact a super-organism with each ant fulfilling the role of an organ i.e. the Queen is the brain, the soldiers the white blood cells and the workers doing pretty much everything in between!
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The comment at the bottom is indeed very handy... I was getting very curious, since the first line, to know where this was coming from. I had gathered you were talking about termites (they are well-known in Italy, for all the wrong reasons I fear). Obviously, I couldn't have imagined the rest of the story, though.
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