'Catching your breath
Is half the test'
He said whilst jabbing
The hornet's nest.
The boy just winced -
lost count of stings -
At private recollection
of foolish things.
Hornets swarmed on
Comparing wings,
This season's colours,
These oblivious things.
A ladder so mounted
Grants gravitas
To those who wield cudgels
and a beekeeper's mask.
But wisdom so valued,
Not cheaply won,
Comes too late to save venture
Before it's begun.
The boy shirks nostalgia,
Warily backs,
From a prescience of danger
Inescapable facts.
'But breathin's easy'
His cheeky spout,
Feckless teeth
'It's just in, then out'.
When the stick wags the dog
Newton appears
Nodding sagely at action,
Momentum's arrears.
So stick brushed thorax
On it's way to pate
But the boy had found distance
He found out too late.
The swing found abandon
Then found the nest;
And the beekeeper's mask
Failed the test.
