The Anthill Pemba Showed Me (Formicary)

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
Pemba led me to the clearing, May 3rd, under the oak canopy.
Formica fusca, I said, pointing at the mound of soil and pine needles.
Thirty thousand workers, each one black with brownish legs.
Carl Linnaeus named them in 1758, in his Systema Naturae, page 580.
The air at 15 degrees Celsius, damp earth scent mixing with formic acid.

[Chorus]
The formicary rises like a small hill, alive at 7:30 AM.
They farm aphids, stroking with antennae, milking honeydew drops.
I kneel close, hear the rustle of tiny legs on leaf litter.
Pemba smiles, says it's a city underground, tunnels from Stockholm to here.

[Verse 2]
No vehicles nearby, just the cart path where locals gather firewood.
I hold the magnifying glass, watch a worker carry an insect carcass.
The nest incorporates twigs, a fortress against the overcast spring.
John Ray observed them in 1691, in his Natural History of Ants.
The faint hum whispers secrets, cool ground squelching under my knees.

[Bridge]
What if we were that small, Bouba? Pemba asks.
Building empires from needles and dew.
The sharp tang bites the air when I poke gently.
Unrecorded farmers once stepped here, names lost to the records.

[Outro]
Formica fusca, our little milkmaids of the forest.
Pemba nods, we leave the clearing untouched.