The imagos stir then sleep
Colourless wraithsEncapsulated in paper
That cannot come forth
Until the wasp colour runs true
And they gnaw out their cell
But their home is cast down
They cannot know
Rain slushes its rigidity away
Or that outside the Queen rages
For she has worked so hard
Chewing wood for a month
To make her palace of paper
Now it is gone; she is lost
Tired; so tired; her children are dying;
Upon the ground in the May rain
She mourns, she regrets, and then she leaves
And the imagos still sleep
Until water washes away coverings
And the blue tit comes
To think nothing of great compassion
When there are young to feed
The Queen must begin again
There is wood to grind
And her abdomen is full of eggs
That will not wait another summer
Perhaps there is time enough left
