Up The Magic Garden

Slightly autobiographical...

Hey, what shall we do today?
Let's go up the garden and play.

You don't need friends, there's plenty there,
Don't stop inside to stand and stare.

What is outside? Let's go and see.
Let's look under the magic tree.

Look, there is a spider here,
Come with me, nothing to fear,
Let's put you in a wooden box,
I'll leave you there for lots and lots.

Let's look now amongst the slabs,
You will see there's lots of ants,
To make sure they won't go far,
I'll put some ants into a jar.

A buzzing sound, I softly hear,
What can it be? I look and leer,
There's a wasp flying around,
It circles down to the ground.

I must be careful, wasps can sting,
They don't care; they'd sting anything,
I whack it with rolled up newspaper,
Just to stun it for my caper.

This next step is not for fools,
You will have to bring your tools,
A pair of tweezers will do you well,
And steady hands will surely tell.

The stunned wasp lies on the ground,
It does not know I am around,
I use the tweezers for these things,
I dismember all its wings.

A flightless wasp for me to keep,
In a box for a few weeks.

So many ants to play with too,
Let's see what body parts to lose.

Legs, if you can keep them still,
They walk as if they are ill,
If you take too many, just be wary,
It leaves them very stationary.

And if you try to take a head,
It simply makes that ant dead,
An antenna here that I have found,
Remove this, they'll walk round and round.

It starts to rain, it's time to stop,
Let's put away the jars and pots,
The spider box into the shed,
Forgotten now for weeks on end.

Remaining ants, I pour away,
Safe to live another day.
I take the flightless wasp inside,
It starts to stir while I spied.

In my room, I carry on,
The wasp walks around the box,
With tweezers, I grip and then,
I seperate the abdomen.

The wasp still lives, but only just,
Its fluids leak out like pus,
The abdomen, a strange thing,
It'll try to use its sting.

It tries to sting for two more weeks,
The wasp is dead, but this still lives,
It soon ends up in the bin,
But it was quite a curious thing.

The rain comes down in a thunderous spray,
I'll torture poor insects another day.