Observations from the Field

Among the social insects,
There’s a species that shelters
In castles of their own spit

They cement against the wind.
These structures can sometimes rise
As if reaching for the sky, 

As the individuals
Always seek to be central
To the densest deposits

Of thickest cemented spit,
And since winds erode their walls
Quickly from the outside in.

The insects on the margins
Are far the most numerous
And productive of fresh spit,

But they spend most of their lives
Exposed to the wind, losing
Shelter fast as they make it.

It’s actually their bodies,
Linked by a little spittle,
That effectively function

Like an exoskeleton
For the entire colony
To bear the brunt of the wind.

The deeper inside you get,
The fewer, softer insects,
More and more encased in spit,

Protected from the outer
World of the relentless winds
And sculpted ever higher,

More pleasantly, securely
In their spiral pyramid.
No one knows how they do this.