This is a story of something I actually witnessed(and I thought it a miracle) until the discovery channel let me know that it is common for wasps to paralyze spiders and other bugs and place them among their eggs so that once the larvae hatch they can eat it (alive!…and sometimes from inside the bug itself!). So grand intrigue is sometimes found not on the big screen…but on a lonely windowsill.
Drama On A Windowsill.
A spider
Motionless on his web, above the windowsill
An aerial fisherman
Casting his net, for those that swim the air
Like it was the sea
Nearby, a wasp
Her papery comb the home she’d built
So diligently
And side by side she and the spider lived
So innocently
‘Till I sat,
One evening reading
And had to turn on the light
For sun-to-twilight was fast fading
Though not yet night
The wasp left her comb, flew over to her neighbour
Like we do sometimes, when in need of a favour
But her sting bristled with malice
Her wings buzzed with menace
What had he (the spider) done
That had caused so much anger?
At her threatening advance, he seemed to retreat
Like a broken battalion does, sensing impending defeat
Still she pursued, further into his lair
Challenging him to fight her, if he would dare!
So delighted to see a spider so scared-
Or maybe deceived by the light
That she flew too close, to the hair-fine lines-
And by those was ensnared
These lines carried their vibration
Faithfully back to their spinner
Telling that the turning tables
Now favoured he as the winner
The wasp, getting more & more entangled by the minute
Was, by all accounts, finished though not likely to admit it
The spider sprang into action
With confidence born of instinct
Spun the web so fast around her
That his forearms were a blur, he seemed not to stop to think
Like my dear grandmother can spin me a sweater while cooking supper and gossiping with the neighbour…
And mess neither nor the other!
I witnessed the beauty and grace possessed
By this often thought hideous creature.
Then the spider,
Having safely cocooned,
Her in her soon to be tomb
Leaned in-hesitantly, as a lover might
To deliver what would end it all-the poison bite
The wasp,
Shuddered in terror, for she was bound tight
So great must have been her fright
For the end was in sight
But-
In a final twist, summoned all of her might
Freed her stinger, stung her captor
As he gave her the kiss, that would end her life.
Thus was another closed chapter,
of natures’ drama
I wonder:
What made these two fearsome creatures,
Annihilate each other?
