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Poetry Prompt: Wasps as Metaphor

By Callie Feyen 5 Comments

I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but I’m not sure I’m as afraid of wasps as I used to be. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at my behavior around them these last few weeks as I know with their season ending, they’re becoming more aggressive, but their buzz hasn’t sent me running at full speed as it used to. I’ve been more observant than jumpy when they make their way into my space.

For example, the other afternoon I found myself in that dreary haze of needing to do a bunch of stuff and knowing I had no time to get any of it done. I had a headache from starting and stopping task after task and couldn’t concentrate on anything anyway, so I made myself a cup of coffee and sat outside on my front porch. I had no book, no piece of writing to fiddle with. My plan was simply to sit a spell.

There is a tree in our front yard that turns golden yellow before releasing its leaves to winter. I love listening to its hush in the summertime. No matter how still the day seems, I can always hear the leaves swaying and rustling. The movement eases me. Listening to this tree reminds me there’s always something going on, and I like that.

Two years ago, a few days shy of winter, a wasp nest fell from one of the tree’s branches. I wonder now if the discovery of the nest was the beginning of the end of my phobia, because I think of the nest often, but with intrigue and not creeped-out fear. The tree that brings me shelter with its noise also provided shelter for something I consider pure evil. I can’t say I had this thought two years ago, but now, thinking about it, I think I was struck by the mystery of the tree: There’s always something else going on, something more to see, and perhaps no matter who we are and what we’ve done, what all of us desire is a place to go where we are safe.

The afternoon I took my coffee on the porch, my oldest daughter, Hadley, joined me. I was happy for her company, though I felt slightly anxious about what to say to my teenage daughter — both of us tend to treat each other like neither of us knows a thing about anything. On that day, though, I didn’t want to mess it up. We sat in silence for a while, and that’s when I saw the wasp — all black — hovering near our defunct doorbell and then crawling inside it.

What I’d normally do is call and text Jesse, to let him know we have wasps and possibly a hornet living in our home. “Infestation” and “plague” are words I’d use to convince him to stop what he was doing at work and come home to fight the good fight.

No such urge came over me that day. I watched, sipped my coffee, and talked with Hadley while the crows in the trees moved the leaves around frantically and cawed easily with one another. On that day I was determined to listen and to talk about whatever Hadley wanted to discuss. No matter if I was afraid. No matter if I didn’t understand.

Eventually, the crows were quiet, or maybe they flew away, but what was left was a light wind weaving its way between Hadley and me. The wasp went in and out of the noiseless doorbell, and David Gray’s Please Forgive Me played over the stereo from the house. We could hear it through the screen door — another feat. I’d never keep that door open knowing a wasp was so close.

“Help me out here / all my words are falling short / and there’s so much I want to say.” Gray’s voice sang through the screen door, past Hadley and I, to the tree overhead. Maybe the words settled themselves amongst the tree’s branches, or maybe they went where the wasp nest used to be. Maybe they were caught by a leaf ready to turn golden yellow before it falls, and then seeping itself into the ground, offering itself up so something else can grow.

Try It

For this piece, I attempted to use metaphor to address growth and change as they pertain to my daughter Hadley, myself, and our relationship. The wasps — while I do fear them with an unadulterated (some might suggest childish) fear — also represent what I do not understand. This transfers to my adolescent daughter and how I relate to her. Am I terrified of her? No, but I do feel apprehensive and trepidatious at times. I want to have a good relationship with Hadley, but I don’t always know how. Or I do know how and make mistakes. Or let my fear get in the way.

Using the wasps helps me say what I want to say in a more interesting and perhaps hopefully universal way, but it also allows me to step away from specifics and keep some things private between Hadley and me.

The tree also is a metaphor. Here, I am using it to explore shelter, protection, and mystery. I tried to tie the two metaphors together in the last sentence by showing that my relationship with my daughter will take falls and missteps, but that all is not lost, and we have plenty of time and space to grow again.

So for this week, try out a metaphor in your writing. Write a poem, a blog post, or even an excerpt from an essay you’re working on and drop it in the comments below.

Featured Poem

Thank you to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here’s one from Richard Maxson that we enjoyed:

Sagrada Familia

Like another Mary, my mother fled
with her children and a simple man
with hands cut and scarred
making lace from glass.

In Barcelona, we stood
in the shadows of Sagrada Familia,
its web of symbols, like wet drippings
of a sand castle for its spires.

Too young then to realize the sadness
frozen in the cowled heads,
the toil and beauty of Gaudi’s
impossible basilica, I remain

captured with them, listening
to the mourning doves coo.
Listening for the silent Christ to speak
his lines of no escapement;

listening to the sound of machines
drowning a vision; a baby born, simply
a dream of hope, buried in monuments,
and this photograph of a family lost in time.

Photo by tiarescott, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Callie Feyen.

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Callie Feyen
Callie Feyen
Callie Feyen likes Converse tennis shoes and colorful high heels, reading the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, and the Twilight series. Her favorite outfit has always been a well-worn pair of jeans and a white T-shirt, but she wants hoop skirts with loads of tulle to come back into style. Her favorite line from literature comes from Sharon Creech’s Absolutely Normal Chaos: “I don’t know who I am yet. I’m still waiting to find out.” Feyen has served as the At-Risk Literacy Specialist in the Ypsilanti Public Schools and is the author of Twirl: my life with stories, writing & clothes and The Teacher Diaries: Romeo and Juliet.
Callie Feyen
Latest posts by Callie Feyen (see all)
  • Poetry Prompt: Courage to Follow - July 24, 2023
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Filed Under: Blog, poetry, poetry prompt, poetry teaching resources, writer's group resources, Writing, writing prompt, writing prompts

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About Callie Feyen

Callie Feyen likes Converse tennis shoes and colorful high heels, reading the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, and the Twilight series. Her favorite outfit has always been a well-worn pair of jeans and a white T-shirt, but she wants hoop skirts with loads of tulle to come back into style. Her favorite line from literature comes from Sharon Creech’s Absolutely Normal Chaos: “I don’t know who I am yet. I’m still waiting to find out.” Feyen has served as the At-Risk Literacy Specialist in the Ypsilanti Public Schools and is the author of Twirl: my life with stories, writing & clothes and The Teacher Diaries: Romeo and Juliet.

Comments

  1. Sandra Heska King says

    September 17, 2019 at 8:10 am

    “There’s always something else going on, something more to see, and perhaps no matter who we are and what we’ve done, what all of us desire is a place to go where we are safe.”

    This is the second wasp thing I’ve read this morning. We had bees of some kind that had found their way inside our siding when we lived in Michigan. They made a hive, and somehow they’d get *inside* the house and fly around. It was frustrating and terrifying. I don’t think they were honeybees. I suppose they could have been, but it was still scary. A beekeeper couldn’t get to them and recommended spraying. A swarm left to find a new home. More came inside for shelter for a while. I’m not big on bees except when they know their own place.

    I think Megan is a master at metaphor with her dogs.

    Reply
  2. Sandra Heska King says

    September 17, 2019 at 8:22 am

    Richard, favorite lines:

    with hands cut and scarred
    making lace from glass.

    And these:

    a dream of hope, buried in monuments,
    and this photograph of a family lost in time.

    Also, I had to go look up the Sagrada Familia. Interesting that it’s still in the beginning process even after 150 years. Maybe that’s a metaphor for us–always beginning, but not yet complete.

    Reply
    • Richard Maxson says

      September 18, 2019 at 11:26 am

      Thank you, Sandra. I have always wanted to write a poem about the church itself, but its magnificence exceeds my skill.

      In your research did you come across this YouTube projection of the basilica?

      Reply
  3. Richard Maxson says

    September 18, 2019 at 11:19 am

    Billy Collins

    Someday I suppose I will have to write
    a poem celebrating Billy Collins,
    because he has written so many
    about me and everyone I know.

    And as if he thought that wasn’t enough,
    there are those descriptions of delicious meals
    we have eaten or wished we’d eaten:
    osso buco, Portobello’s, salmon,
    so real on the page, their aroma rising
    in a fine ink vapor as the vowels
    and consonants begin to simmer.

    In the poem I write, about Billy Collins,
    you will learn how he helped me quit smoking,
    how I learned to watch, while driving at night,
    for the eyes of poems on the roadside,
    waiting for me to pass before crossing,
    then following the tail lights to my home.

    I think how good my poem about him will be,
    when suddenly he’s there, on the jacket flap,
    arms folded, and he stares at me all the way
    from Lehman College, by the classroom door
    as if he is analyzing my poem,
    filling its pages with circles and lines,
    comments in red pencil, and a strange map
    illuminated with angels dancing on pins to fifth notes.

    Reply
  4. Finn Mac Eoin says

    April 14, 2022 at 2:55 am

    (Metaphor)

    Buzz

    Everyone hates W.A.S.P.s but
    the buzz word in the forest is
    that their season is coming to
    an end the auld queen is past
    it and the colony is in demise
    yet, it is at times such as this
    they become more aggressive
    & will use their venomous sting.

    Reply

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