A Bee and Other Thoughts
Two Poems
The first of today’s poems describes a fairly common occurrence for me. Living in rural Arizona with my small herd of endangered Galiceno ponies, I often find that their water tanks have lured intrepid bees or wasps too deep to recover by themselves. Sometimes a hand is the quickest, most convenient rescue. And no, I’ve never been stung doing this (and I know that I’m not actually allergic to bee stings in any case.)
By the way, according to the Sonoran Desert Museum, the state of Arizona contains the highest diversity of native bees in the US–more than a quarter of the known bee species in the nation live here. This is one more reason that wild Arizona needs to be protected.
Finally, I had given up on writing ghazals many months ago, as all my attempts were proving atrocious. This poem simply arrived with the form already half-worked-out, so I completed it accordingly.
Ghazal to a Drowning Bee
Drowned in water, furry bee—
Motionless, no flurry be.
Outstretched wings a sodden film,
All your stripes are blurry, bee.
Water much too deep to tread
Sucked you in its slurry, bee.
You’re so close to death, you can’t
Look up to adjure me, bee.
Yet I see you, and my hand–
Unlike you–can hurry, bee.
Body wet and waterlogged
Slows your upward scurry, bee.
On my skin your six claws clinging,
Climbing, reassure me, bee.
Stretch each leg into the breezes
Until each can stir free, bee.
Still your wings are damp and drooping;
They must air to whir free, bee.
Stay and dry in desert sunlight;
Let my hand your dhurrie be.
No more need for fear, my friend,
Rest here, rub and curry, bee.
Risks we take for our own reasons:
Need and fate and worry, bee.
You risk death, and I risk stinging–
Scarcely equal, furry bee!
The wild globemallow is just beginning to set buds for its spring flowering.
Spring Sun
Find me a canyon side;
Bring me the sun
To call out the new flowers,
Each by another one:
Globemallow flowers,
Their chalice-cups full
Of the wine-red stamens;
And near lies each hull
Of last year’s acacia pods,
Rust-brown and done
As the year that is gone now.
Bring me the sun!
The rhymes in the ghazal are delightfully inventive, and your tender encouragement of Sister Bee is so tender. And "Spring Sun" is altogether exultant!
The bee's Ghazal is exquisite and it's unique in that it treats of something so small yet is strangely serious, as if you were seeing it more than half from the threatened bee's perspective. Also anyone who can make a form as tortuous as a Ghazal to lilt is a master of their craft. I send congratulations.