The Bee Nest Poem by Gert Strydom

In Primary school
we played in the field
above the school
in break time.

There we discovered
a hive of bees
under a overhanging
shelve of rock
and I told the other kids
to leave it alone
and went away
to play on my own.

One of the kids
(Peter Conn)
threw three broken bricks
into that bee nest
and that swarm of bees
came like lightning bolts
thundering in.

He ran like a flash
and passed me
with great speed
where I was playing
with some dinky toy cars
and when I looked up
I saw the sky
turning black with bees
and that fool escaped
the consequence of his deeds.

I hardly had time to get up,
never mind to run
when there were bees stinging
and targeting in
from everywhere.

Like a scapegoat the bees
took me for the enemy
and buzzed in
and they came
in great numbers
and that whole swarm stung me
all over my body.

I was swollen up
like a inflated doll,
couldn’t see through my eyes,
could hardly breathe
and got a terrible rash
and were almost unconscious
when we arrived at the nearest hospital
where my mother was in a great panic
and the doctor injected me
a couple of times
and put a drip in my arm
and after that for a while
bees were deadly to me.