108 words
For fifteen days a caterpillar feeds
on sorrel, selfheal, ragwort, mint, or privet.
If a wasp mounts it and injects its larvae,
they’ll prosper on its blood, and then gnaw through
its epidermis, fragile in the weeds.
The woolly bear will suffer trauma, outlive it,
protect the wasp cocoons, and then starve three
weeks, though surrounded by lush leaves and dew.
This is not part of a conspiracy.
The female wasp does what she’s always done.
The hapless caterpillar does the same.
And so it is with people; few are free
to fly away as Coppers in the sun,
Monarchs or moths in unforgiving flame.
2 Comments
I can see why Leo got the award.
However, I was wondering.
This is not part of a conspiracy.
The female wasp does what she’s always done.
The hapless caterpillar does the same.
Are ALL caterpillars hapless? Would the female wasp automatically go for just any caterpillar? I would think that she would go for the weakest ones. Instinctively, she knows. Same reason that, even when influenza or anything else is “going around”, and an entire group is exposed, only some will get sick.
We have to stop viewing ourselves as doomed. No, we are not. Not as individuals and not as a race.
This is a poem about caterpillars, not about wasps.
The last stanza makes it clear that not all caterpillars are meant to involve into something higher, only some. Instinctually, white woman know not to go for the weakest white men. If you are small, ugly and stupid you have no genetic future. That’s just the way it is. As George Lincoln Rockwell said: “A man who won’t fuck, won’t fight.”
Only ugly, small, weak guys are doomed.