The Wasp
By Erik Lumberjack

From all-creatures.org
SPIRITUAL AND
INSPIRATIONAL
POETRY ARCHIVES

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The Wasp
By Erik Lumberjack

Two weeks ago, on Saturday,
I took the train to a far off,
beautiful outdoor hotsprings
up a winding path deep in the
mountains.

It was wonderful.

But since it's summer, they
had a sign up Beware of Wasps.

It said the wasps bite.

So I tiptoed on the green, mossy
stones, slowly sunk deep into
the warm hotsprings water and
opened my paperback book to
read.

Then I heard a slight humming.

It soon became the purr of a toy
Cessna and I looked down and saw
a wasp friend was preparing to land
on my ear.

So I wacked it away.

Not a meatatarian whack, but a
gentle vegan one.

Next, I lowered my glance to the
water, and the wasp I had flung off
was on its back flapping the warm
water with both wings.

It was trying to breathe, and its
tiny fluttering lashes pleaded with
me for life. I want to live too.

My heart could hear the whisper
of its eyes Why...? Why...?

So I quickly grabbed a nearby
bamboo sun hat, scooped the
friend out of the water and
tapped it onto a nearby stone.

It made two or three splashes
in a small puddle of water, and
then flew straight up towards
the heavens.

I felt so proud.

I felt something sacred.

I was happy.

That day when I got home
I counted twenty-two wasp
bites on my body.

That was two weeks ago.

I made so many wasp friends!

Then last Saturday I went again.

This time I put anti-wasp gell all
over my body and even on my hair.

I laid again in the warm water
against a big rock and watched
the green leaves flutter against
the high blue sky.

It was so peaceful.

Then I heard two men say

"There's a wasp in the water."

I heard splashing sounds.

I looked and they were bobbing
a wasp up and down with something
in their hand, trying to delete its
name from the Book of Life.

I'm shy, so it's hard for me to
interrupt complete strangers and
say

"Excuse me servant of Satan.
Could you cease to sin before
God and man before I beachslap
you?"

But I had to.

So I rushed between the two
human handmaidens of Beelzebub
and up to the wasp friend and said

"I can't stand to watch this"

and scooped the friend up with my
sun hat like before.

I shook it up toward the heavens
and hummed the first few
verses of Born Free through my
nose.

But as I sang I felt a twingle on
the knuckle of my left index finger.

It was the finger of my hand that
held the bamboo cap.

I looked down and blood was
oozing from a fold below my
knuckle.

And a wasp was perched on the
knuckle part and was moving
its tongue to and fro to stir wasp
excrement into my knuckle blood.

I shouted out a term for copulation,
and instinctively vegan-wacked it high
into the firmament.

But then, still in shock, I felt
another tinkle and looked further
up and -- you may not believe this,
but it's true -- the wasp's friend
was perched on my left nipple, and
had its lower jaw open wide, like the
Visitors just after they returned to
mother ship and prepared to snack
on mouse, and it was tilting its glance
ever so slightly up towards me.
Time froze.

There was only me and the wasp,
you and I.

And the flutter of its tiny eyelashes
towards me above its poised mouth.

It gave me a loving sideglance,
and our hearts were one.

Then time started again, and
I heard myself proclaim a synonym
for number two since I had already
screamed the one for relations
a few moments ago.

My hand moved, and the wasp,
still living of course, shot up to
the clouds to join her friend
of a few moments earlier.

On the way back on the train
I felt my left chest hurt.

It still tingles a little now as
I write.

Then it struck me.

I'm a saint.

Mother Theresa helped thousands
of humans and was bathed in the
love.

I extended a hand of caring to the
forgotten, and was bitten on the
nipple by a wasp.

She bathed in love.

I bathe in ooze.

So I told this to my friends, making
comparisons when appropriate of
myself to Mother Theresa.

They told me that I'm lazy,
self-centered and am only vegan
to aggrandize myself and brag about
stories like the one I'm telling you
now.

So I have scars, a tingling nipple,
and now I've been humiliated too.

When there's a vegan pope I will
be canonized.

There will be justice in the world.

The gentle will be rewarded.

My left nipple will hang from the
rear view mirrors of the faithful,
with a golden wasp perched on it.

I will be called Mother Erik, and
will give hope to all.

Or perhaps Erik Claus.

History will fill in the details.

I'm worth something too!

I participated in giving the
greatest gift of all!

I got bit and humiliated.

But who cares!

My reward was seeing the happy
wasp flying towards the clouds.

That's enough.

I'm glad I was born. I'm so happy.

I'm so thankful I could share in
that.

The day of the early vegans
will come.

We will be saints.

We will bless all and wipe
away the tears of the sad.

We're surrounded by killing
and hurt.

The face of McDeath stands
proudly on cement.

Our self esteem should be
infinite.

We've done enough to feel
happy about ourselves.

We should be so proud!