Bees & Ants (a poem)

For many, life has no discernable meaning.
Who’s to say they’re wrong?

For many more, questions of meaning are given over to others who prescribe dogmas –
comforting systems rooted in a belief in a higher power.
Who’s to say they’re wrong?

For others, meaning lies no further than the plate of potatoes, ribeye, cream sauce, pumpkin pie—satisfying enough to suggest a meaning all their own.
Who’s to say they’re wrong?

But is it heresy to ask if meaning exists only in collective action?
Does a single bee or ant have a meaning outside the hive or colony?

Yet to beings as self-absorbed as we, such an interpretation conflicts
with our collective faith in rugged individualism, in the illusion of independence,
to what we attribute to personal ambition – that which propels
each of us towards collective action.

I suppose the bee, if she could talk, would credit only
self-reliance, perseverance and ambition when pointing with pride
to the creation of the hive,
even as she swarms together with other bees, instinctively,
to protect it from the bear.
Who’s to say she’s wrong?