WASP
by
Robin Fulford
Written while beside the grave of Samuel Beckett in Paris, July 2010.
A play in won seen.
The thunder thunders.
The sun shines.
The rain dries.
The wind dies.
Cemetery.
A man stands looking down at a raised slab of grey marble granite, which reads, ‘Samuel Beckett, 1906-1989’.
Buds from the overhanging tree lie split open on the slab.
A wasp goes from bud to bud gouging out the innards.
When it lands on a bud, its weight rolls them both over as the wasp wrestles out the goodness, its stinger bottom pumping in and out.
Between the ‘l’ of Samuel and the ‘B’ of Beckett, the wasp has its last gouge before it flies away.
The man writes a note and leaves it in the same spot, the folded paper held down by a small stone.
The note reads:
you are the wasp
we are the buds
the slab is the world
let’s watch and wonder
