Point of View

The poem is told from the first-person perspective of a speaker who seeks to understand the droves of wasps that come to collect water. Since the poem does not specify the speaker’s gender, this guide uses “they” and “them” pronouns when referring to the speaker. Even as they physically combat the wasps with a broom, the speaker considers what drives not only human or wasp behavior, but the behavior of all living beings. This demonstrates the speaker’s cognitive flexibility and empathy. In their encounters with the wasps, they foreground the wasps’ position. For instance, they admire the delicate balance the wasps must strike between carrying water and not wetting their wings. This admiration comes early on in the poem before the speaker describes thrusting a broom like “a pitchfork on fire” into the swarm (Line 8). Images such as this touch on the brutality...