Christmas Vicious

A Holiday Verse

This summer, Fresh and Modern Prude Sonja Marmalade introduced Rubella’s coffee shop, a beloved haunt of all the Prudes, and touched briefly upon two subjects that we expand upon today. One was the shop’s yearly battle with the insect world—most particularly with the local population of particularly dedicated wasps—the other was the foolish urge of certain creative types to express themselves in rhyme. Little did she know that Charlotte Collins, during her own memorable tenure as a barista at the selfsame shop, had been inspired by the selfsame battle with the insect world, to pen the following poem. We share it today in the hopes that it will bring our readers a new and sensitive perspective on this most festive time of year, with our deepest apologies to Sonja:

They watch through the spring, through the summer and fall—
The wasps! They are watching. The wasps! They see all.
They watch, with benevolent eye in the spring,
The ladies sip lattes; for fine weather brings
Their own waspy lattes of nectar and sap.
The wasps wish no evil in spring, no mishap
Upon the humanity sipping and chewing.
In summer (though ominous clouds are now brewing),
what smoothie compares to the vibrant array
Of fungi and fauna that strew the wasp way?
The wasps! They leave smoothies to children and fly
With joyous wasp hearts ‘neath the blue of the sky
Far afield, to seek flavors and tastes quite as nice
As any the chef hawks at premium price.
But at first breath of autumn their hearts grow as cold
As the toes of a penguin, or skin of a toad.
To a wasp-heart in autumn no toad and no toe
Is as foul, as loathed as the ultimate foe.
Whence comes this fierce hatred? Why fills the wasp heart
A vengeful fury no pen can impart?
The wasps! I have heard them—as clustered around
A puddle of syrup—with sinister sound,
Snarling and lapping as desperately
As jackals surprised on the Serengeti
At their watering-hole by a lion’s approach,
Notes of rage in the snarl, but also reproach.
Reproach? Aye! The wasps who are watching, see all;
And know their destruction must come in the fall.
The wasps! fear not death. No, the wasps would laugh gaily
In the face of grim death, but the wasps must watch daily
The world that whirls on when the wasps are long dead
Preparing some manner of grand festive spread.
The wasps—who know nothing of skating and sleds,
Tiny knit caps on their little wasp-heads,
Cozy knit scarves round their little wasp throats,
Hot mugs of chocolate, sparkling motes
Of crystalline snow-showers falling through trees
Fair autumn forbore to bereave of their leaves,—
The wasps, as I say, who know nothing of this;
Nonetheless know the baffled bereavement of bliss,
And it fills their small hearts with a venomous hate—
The thought of all humankind, wretched or great
Taking part in a fest that the wasps cannot share;
(Though wasps at their finest display little care
For sharing or song or for laughter and friends),
So they fight and they hate until the frost ends
Their vicious campaign, and the ages-old strife
Lays dormant ’til Spring brings their pupae to life.

So in winter as you, reader, cozily sit
By your crackling fire, pray, do not forget—
As you sip on sweet cider and munch on sweetmeats—
To spare a kind thought for each man and each beast
For each poor soul lonely, or angry, or sad
Or cold, on a night when all souls should be glad.
And watching the snowflakes flit round the dark sky,
Spare one for our tinier brethren who fly
Like the flakes, light as feathers—the sparrow and thrush
The moth and the butterfly, crow and the—hush!
A spectral sound murmurs from spectral wasp Hell:
“Spare one for the wasp who will never Nowell!”