The Queen is hungry; the Queen needs food.
If She perishes, so does the brood.

Supplies dissipate like a cloud.
Thieves, floods and famine- What to do now?

The trek, requiring master explorers, is far.
Soldiers travel, raid, and meet the bar,

that She has set, for the underlings to find:
Sugar, grains, and meat for the Queen to dine.

The Queen likes honey. She’ll even settle for ground fruit.
The skyscraping trees and hard soil. What are they to do?

The jungle suffocates with vines, brush and thickets.
The men carry on, slipping, slashing and killing maggots.

Competing with neighbors and fleeing from attackers,
the soldiers press on, claiming more food as Hers.

Hundreds of male mouths fewer to feed,
but the women survive,for they, like the Queen,

have duties to tend and children to oversee.
They hunker down and don’t decamp the colony.

For the survival of the colony depends on the women,
in an ant’s society, where the men are driven,

to the extreme; to protect, provide and please
the women in their life; their one true Queen.