Vogelsang Peak, Yosemite National Park

12

Oh curséd tormentor,

Why do you haunt me?

You buzz around, buzz around,

Driving me to distraction.

What is your purpose?

Why this ceaseless action?

What do you teach us?

Patience?

Humility?

Endurance, most likely.

What?

You have no purpose

Other than that of any creature:

To live,

To continue the kind,

To worship God in the joy of life?

Then you seem successful,

For you do live

Intent

On torment;

And you continue your kind,

If the abounding hordes

Are any sign;

And your joy of life

I demonstrated in the exuberance

With which you approach the feast.

Oh curséd beast!

Why does your worship

Require blood sacrifice?

Why must you constantly

Parade your presence

Before my ears and eyes?

I pray to God, you go, go,

Go pick on someone your own size,

You curséd mosquito!

Vogelsang

June 26, 1977