Poetry Saturday 2

The Ant

The ant has made herself illustrious
By constant industry industrious.
So what? Would you be calm and placid
If you were full of formic acid?

This poem is by Ogden Nash - and I offer it in a spirit of amusement after going to see The Ant Bully today. Lucas Nickle is the new kid in town and the local bully, Steve, loves to torment him for it. Lucas gets so fed up with being bullied, he takes out his frustration on ants in his backyard by squirting them with the garden hose or stamping on the ant hill. The ants are understandably fed up with this - they've named him "Peanut the Destroyer" (Peanut being his mother's nickname for him). Zoc (voiced by Nicholas Cage), the ant wizard, decides to teach Lucas a lesson and uses a potion he's created to shrink him down to ant size. Lucas is sentenced to learn to become an ant and is mentored by Hova (voiced by Julia Roberts). He becomes an ant friend, but then must become an ant hero when Stan Beals, the local pest control guy (who is an even bigger bully), comes to wipe out the entire ant colony. An "ants vs pest control" battle ensues and Zoc reluctantly accepts that Lucas may be the ants' only chance of survival.