Haibun

RESPITE 

            An ant is crisscrossing an area of the patio.  It navigates the bricks without falling between the cracks.  Slow, but continuously moving, covering the same area of about four feet square.  Twenty minutes zigzagging twice across and back to where it began.  I turn away and loose sight of it.  Did it move on to another part of the patio having given up on finding food?  Or did it fall in a crack and can't get out?  Such persistence and determination for no apparent gain.

                                                            the spring evening

                                                                 comes slowly to a close—

                                                                      bird songs fading

Frogpond, autumn 2005