When the greens are different.
Not of the light luminescence of spring, but a darker green now.
When the richer greens are more complicated, and more mature, and heavier.
When the green of the grass is fuller then, than the younger grass, only then are the ants ready to fly.
One evening in July, between the dusk and sunset, when the temperature, light and humidity are just right, and when the grass is long enough and strong enough, to launch them.
Then and only then, can the ants file one by one, and fly into the sky.
Straight up, and into the wild awaiting air for them.
Their first flight with their new, tiny, translucent wings takes their weight and the wind, and takes them high, into the blue sky still. The clouds wait, and the air supports them.
Off they fly, into today and into the summer eve’s blue. And it will be the blue that’s a part of it. When the sky is Maya blue, or cornflower blue, or wait, of course…cerulean.
Some ants are brave and Gung ho. They fly off on the adventure with big, lascivious grins. They can’t wait to mate, and start new colonies wherever they land, far away from the backyards where they started from.
Other ants have summer melancholia and are wistful for their old homes, which were familiar and safe. They feel vertiginous, and nauseous, and teary. They will never enjoy the evening acrobatics, or the free falling or the dangers. They look backwards, towards the homes where they once belonged.
Some ants are neutral: neither excited nor dreading the event. They simply accept it’s what they do, on this one night in July, alongside all the other ants.
All the thoughts and doubts. The awe ants, and doubting ants, sad ants and excited ants, joyful ants and naughty ants, funny ants and deeply, earnest ants.
All flying in the sky, spectacularly.
All the other ants, know the moment of flight from the temperature, the light, the humidity and the way the green grass looks different now, from the luminescence of the spring. But now a darker green, a more mature green and a more complicated colour.
This tremendous journey under azure skies, timelessly.
Shorter than me 