Moon at Half Past Noon

When the first ray of the morning sun
climbs the sky-touching buildings,
a line of ants on the pavement below—
just like us, without name or address—
gathers pieces of their destiny
in a play that no one sees.

Every ant has but one question:
to find a piece of food for the day,
a grain of rice, a speck of sugar,
and to weave their small world
in an unknown womb of the earth.
Exactly like us, who from the station’s noise
to the office’s silence
carry the heavy burden of dreams,
fighting a new battle every day.

The ant never tires—
in the mud of rain, the burn of sun,
it creates tunnels,
complicated routes that lead somewhere,
to that one grain, to that one destination.
We too, in the pulse of the city’s rail,
walk as silent soldiers,
holding our broken-and-mended dreams
in this shiny iron box.

As night falls,
the ants return to their hidden homes,
in a world that exists right under our noses,
in exactly the same way,
we return to our small living space
without any applause or noise,
just in the sound of children’s laughter
and the whistle of the tea kettle.

This tale of the ants
reminds us
that however big the city may be,
the paths of humans and ants
are tied to the same clod of earth.
We are small warriors,
who must stitch our torn blankets
every day with threads of new hope.

And yet,
just as the ant’s spirit
does not waver
on its stony paths,
so too our courage
does not break in the city’s crowd—
weaving the dream of a new morning every evening,
we build our happiness, piece by piece,
along with countless unknown companions,
in the unspoken story of this city.