Did you ever play with a magnifying glass?

Sending rays of sunlight 

Onto unsuspecting ants below?

I did, countless times to be precise.

I got a real big kick out of it.

Yet, when I look back on it

I am almost horrified by the act.

A mere innocent child,

Not a care in the world

Burning a civilization to death below him

All before running home and watching cartoons

And drinking orange juice,

Mommas little boy.

I didn’t realize what I was doing, they tell me.

It was just an innocent game, no harm done, says the rest.

Yet I highly doubt those ants below thought it was so innocent.

They had their lives to attend to.

Their struggles, their loves, 

Their hatreds, and their insanity.

And in the end they were all burned to death by me.

Mothers clutching burning infants 

Men shouting up to the heavens

Asking why they have been forsaken.

It is was there, then, now and will be at that moment I realize

I too am an ant.

We are all ants, on a massive ant hill full of water,

Floating in the giant backyard of the universe.

And I shake in fear, and look up in the sky each day

Half expecting to see another young boy

With a magnifying glass, in his hands.