Memory Lane: Wildlife

Today I'm giving you a childhood memory of mine in the form of a poem I wrote a few months ago. I hope you enjoy it.

Accidental Cruelty

We caught two scorpions

Under the rocks –

Into the jar

With dirt and twig:

An inch long each

And reddish-black.

We learned scorpions

Are territorial

Circling in their space

Deaf to our cheers

Turned to pleas

And admonishments.

One killed the other

And morosely we fed

The dead one to the ants

With their foot-tall hill

In our backyard,

And we pondered the champion.

A great idea!

He was strong –

He had killed a fellow scorpion.

We set him at the far edge

Of the red antropolis

And waited for the massacre

And we learned the power

Of overwhelming numbers

As our poor champion

Was carried off alive,

Accessories to arachnid murder

Twice in the space of an hour.