AN ANT

A red ant marches across the sand
the hardest worker I've seen.
His legs move up and down and around
he's a moving machine.


     I wrote this poem on my walk yesterday morning as I knew I needed a poem for today.  I saw an ant walking with me and I knew he was a real moving machine.  I ended up using reverse rhyming to write this poem.  I started with a red ant is a moving machine, but then when I tried to write a line to rhyme with it, everything sounded forced, or like a throw away line written just to rhyme with machine.  So I moved the moving machine to my last line and worked backwards for a line to go with that.  Try reading the poem with the second and fourth lines reversed and you'll see what I mean.  Of course, you can always try the other trick I use when I can't find a good rhyming line.  I see if the poem will fit as a haiku.

one red desert ant

hurries across the hot sand--

a moving machine

  Or as a FIB (a poem based on Fibanachi's number  1,1,2,3,5,8.)

one

red

desert

ant hurries

across the rough sand

legs scurry-- a moving machine.

  Then as serendipity sometimes works, the poem posted on children's poet David Harrison's blog this week is from his collection  BUGS  and is titled ANTS.  You can read it here:  http://davidlharrison.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/poem-of-the-week-ants-2/