If you need the side of a live termite mound, never take more than one-third.

Think about what is inside: halls and ventilation channels, a million mouths, storage chambers for food, fungal gardens with carefully monitored temperature.

275 million stars form every day, no more than the termites burrowing under this one city; white-beige stars chewing the quiet of earth into walls and towers, each shimmering body sculpting a new planet, one mouthful at a time.  

Termite hills are built of dirt and spit and can be hard as cement. In central Angola they pave roads with them. In northern B…