Gruesome Tales from Nature: The Fig and the Wasp

“Nature’s give-and-take cycle
Gives us a ride
On her daunting monocycle

“A flower and a bee might slowly become
either simultaneously or one after the other,
modified and adapted to each other
in the most PERFECT manner”

– Darwin.

This tale is based on the TRUE story
of how fig-trees were pollinated
in a time when there were no
supermarkets:

“Oh la la”
says the cheeky wasp
“I see a hole to penetrate”
(although by “hole” she means “ostiole”).

Through the ostiole she enters the fig
(which hangs like a sweet droopy flower)
and swims across its purple pelisse. 

There she lays her eggs
within the nooks of the fig’s womb
yet she finds herself stuck
to the flower’s spongy walls.   

She suffocates to death
while her unborn babies quiver
—chanting “gory gooey woes”
besides her glutinous tomb.

“Oh, how kind we are” says the fig-flower
“to let this family drama
befall inside our bowels”.

But the little wasps will one day burst and fly
to propagate all over —yes!
the fig’s precious seeds.

A win-win situation
(one might declare)
for all the wasps and all the figs:
All’s well that ends well.

Will you, human folk, feel different now
as you pluck the droopy flower
from the tree?

Somewhere hidden in a nest,
bearded old Charles Darwin
(another fellow of infinite jest)
will be scornfully laughing:  

Hee, hee, hee
Hah, hah, hah
All those figs
all those wasps.

If he sees you nibbling on
a concealed sweetened corpse.

Hah, hah, hah – hee, hee, hee.