Winter Wasps

Two dead winter wasps on window sills in

different rooms, not trophies but remnants

of my grey January sloth and their misjudged

audacity. It’s not like this is the killing moment

but I was more annoyed than if it were their

right time to die. This far from summer’s sun

puts us both in fragile territory when the warm

surprise of these past few months unsettles

natural things, and I have been teased by

misery simply coinciding with relentless clouds

and climate change on every horizon.

So an eventual Spring clean will remove the cruel

sting from all this uncertainty, but can a hope of routine
return us to a life before the damage done?