William D. Waltz
from Subterranean Homesick Blues
Like many children, I was an insect enthusiast who often imagined magically shrinking so that I might follow the ants down their tunnels to witness their life beneath the sod. Instead, after reading that over a million organisms live in a square foot of soil, to my mother’s chagrin, I transplanted a portion of our yard into an empty ten-gallon aquarium and began my study, which focused on observing the ants’ antics and stealing glimpses of the unseen. My crude terrarium aspired to expose that which usually goes unobserved like a cutaway illustration of a mature tree demonstrates that the root system equals the height and width of the leafy canopy. One reaches for the Earth’s core, the other for the sun.