Mad as a Hornet

I can't get over being angry that the hornets' nest was destroyed. It makes me realize how out of sync I am with the rest of the world---how out of contact with the way other people think. When I tell them why I'm mad, they say things like, Ma, be reasonable!

It's 7:30 a.m. There is no breeze on the swing. The air feels heavy. No birdsong. No leaf rustle. No rattle of squirrel. Where is the life? The pine trees are tall and straight and quiet this morning. This morning after death.

Not a death of significance to anyone who wasn't paying attention. Still, I don't know what do with this angry energy. They are gone---just gone---which is loss enough---but knowing they came to a vicious and horrible end after I had preserved and protected their habitat for them is a betrayal of the worst kind. As if I had set them up for a pre-mature and violent death. It is no consolation that they would have died naturally at season's end---with the first freeze---according to genetic code. They were poisoned in my absence, when I had no way of defense against it, after a promise to let them stay until winter. Double betrayal.

I wanted to know how big the nest would have gotten, how the architecture progressed, how the hornets lived. I had hoped, after first freeze, to take the nest down gently, respectfully . . . to learn about hornet life inside the paper chambers. They will not come again. It's a small thing in the grand scheme. Others tell me I'm being irrational, that it was a dangerous situation. So I don't tell them of my grief.

Instead I think of my brother's grief for the loss of his son---of his unending grief and anger beyond measure---of his rational yet unbearable pain---and I send him love. dkm