Some will fly, whine and die in the summertime

Here is a funny little poem I wrote while out in the backcountry doing trail work a few summers ago.  I’m sure all of you bloggers can relate to an annoying insect, be it a fly or mosquito, that has been the bane of your existence.  You try to go to sleep, read a book, drink lemonade or just have one moment of glorious silence, but there are one (or two or three or four) small problems in your way.  This poem is my smack down on Drosophila!

 

Through the entirety of July

the mimics whined,

those summer flies

disguised as black and yellow

striped Drosophila 

only trying their best to sound

but not act

like Hymenoptera.

 

Too clumsy they

who

hover

hum

and hit upon the head

another passing insect

or human snoozing,

half asleep.

 

If annoyed,

catch them unawares

underneath your armpit hairs,

listen to the bumbling mess

asking you, in so few syllables,

*BIZZZZZZ*

“Kindly remove your arm

from my thorax!”

 

Once vacated,

the fly returns,

hardly learned

its place is not to peek

in another’s business,

but all the same,

hard to complain

of its ignorance

seeing the bug

firmly squashed

between my fingertips.

poem from ‘Nostalgia, Naturally’ by Tyler Pedersen, Copyright 2007