In Vesper’s gaze on limestone throne,
the yellow-black ants creep,
through moss-forest’s emerald bone,
then falter, sink, and weep
in dreamed of caverns veined and deep,
where carrion choirs in silence keep
the testament of larval sleep.

Not earth alone their voices ring,
their gospel threads the astral dust;
they feast on organ, stone, and wing,
they sanctify what breaks to rust.
Their mandibles inscribe the law:
no star endures, no world is just;
the suns themselves they one day gnaw,
their hunger patient, endless, must.

The galaxies in elliptic flight
are granaries for their unseen reign;
each orbit marks a dwindling rite,
each nova but a brief refrain.
The ants, eternal, small, profane,
bear entropy’s unbroken chain,
and whisper to the void’s domain:
“All light shall dim, all form shall wane.”

And Vesper, screened by iron skies,
disdains in pitiless delight;
the argent eye, a judge that spies
the crawling choir’s final rite.

Through aeons’ ash, through suns that sigh,
their hymn declaims across the sky:
the ants attend creation’s pyre,
crown all that dies within the gyre.