Dedication to a Potter Wasp.(Poem)

 
DEDICATION TO A POTTER WASP 
 
   Allow me, this day and any other, the energy 
   and dedication of the potter wasp 
   which flies with pellets of clay 
   from the rainforest clearing to this verandah; 
   a loner who has built the cells for her nest on a sill 
   while I, sedated by tropical heat, watched. 
 
   For she has done this without let up, 
   constructed her adobe complex all week, 
   both worker and architect in one; 
   each cell like a reduced earthen vessel 
   from early civilisation, the wet clay 
   tamped into shape, by her antennae, 
   which in spite of the damp quickly dries. 
 
   Only when great rain isolates this house 
   --our view lost in cloud--and loudly hammers 
   the iron roof to prove, even at a distance, 
   there's a place at this height humans have made 
   does she take a break. The male, 
   I've noticed from my recliner, is ever elsewhere 
   and, as far as assistance goes, fails. 
 
   ...