Nosratullah Kasemi: Sting and Antidote

Said wasp to bee:
they loathe me
stone my nest
smoke me out
and even pay
for cyanide
to move me,

but you,
with your hexagons
and pollen dances,
they house in luxury.

Said bee: to sting
and still be loved
you must give honey.



Translated by Omar Pound (son of Ezra, and a Persian scholar). Kasemi was a physician and politician as well as poet; he'd quit politics long before Iran's Islamic Revolution. The translation has some nice touches ("your hexagons and pollen dances") but I have no idea if its light-verse tone reflects the original.