Invariably described as an ecological disaster,

fire ants are the evolved antithesis of market

garden poets. Recently, a lyrebird's corpse

was found littered with crimson pustules

in bushland adjoining a continental herb patch.

The ants infiltrated this land obscured in cargo

containers, cleared by Quarantine, some of whose

scribes have since been uncovered as acolytes.
They spread out, heedless too of bush poets' pleas.

Now swarming in countless colonies of numbers

of up to half a million, with a retractile stinger

that can deliver anaphylactic shock to the

domestic gardener, they fear none. The literati

who fled in time are still laughing their heads off.