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On Wednesday I cut the grass.
Unwittingly, I brought a small,
languorous hornet into the house
on the cuff of my blue work shirt
and soon sustained a sting on my hand.
No swelling,
no great or
lasting pain,
no harm done.
I flicked the hornet
to the floor and stomped on it.
Later, after reporting this event
to a friend, I reconsidered my
assertion of “no harm done.” I
began to realize that, from the
hornet’s perspective, the stomping
may well have seemed a
substantial harm indeed.
In a week saturated with political
potentialities, I also began to
contemplate the metaphorical
meaning of the deceased hornet
and its yet-to-be-encountered
colleagues congregating
somewhere in my lawn.
♦
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