#poetry of the bee

[mournfulroses]

Sylvia Plath, from The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath; "The Bee Meeting,"

[fickes]

Conversation between the artist and the artwork

[p---l---c]

the lovers

[apoemaday]

The Bee Box

by Lowell Parker

In this small box, my love, you’ll not find a ring, but instead, a brave little bee. He’ll be dead by morn, having given his life defending his flowers against me. I felt his sting while picking the small purple pansies growing wild along the roadside, in hopes of an afternoon bouquet for you. And I grieved the sting, more for him than me, knowing full well the price he paid for my small pain. And I allowed him his victory, leaving his flowers as a memory, and brought you instead this brave little bee, who proves there is love even in the smallest of things.

[rhymingtherapy]

in a feeding frenzy buzzing

from beauty to beauty,

meadow to garden—where

the sugar-dusted petals bloom

honey bee hanging out in

suspended animation sipping

bubblegum buds—ahhh

the sweet life of a drone

.

RhymingTherapy—April 2024 (my photo)

[gennsoup]

Autumn is always too early. The peonies are still blooming, bees are still working out ideal states, and the cold bayonets of autumn suddenly glint in the fields and the wind rages.

Adam Zagajewski, Autumn

[arabriddler]

A poem about wanting to be loved easily

[poems-of-the-anentomologist]

alone

how many times has this happened to you? you find a group of people you enjoy.

for the first time you feel safe around people you call friends.

they help you find parts of your personality that you had never found for yourself,

the parts that made you feel so separate from everyone you had been friends with.

how many times has this happened to you? you look at people who are open about everything.

you feel disconcerted, like those people are familiar, yet so far away.

you dont understand how someone could be so open to themselves,

let alone the rest of the world,

to think that way

how many times has this happened to you? you bury, hide parts of yourself under not being able to understand where they come from

you hide yourself behind a self-imposed mask that you don’t remember putting up.

but the mask starts to crack as you learn more about yourself and others

you take off the mask and everyone is happy. 

you feel,

for the first time,

truly, truly, happy

how many times has this happened to you? you fall in love with all your friends.

you feel a deep connection to all of them and just want to be physically near them at all times.

they ground you emotionally and keep you sane

none of your feelings are romantic in any way

they think its romantic

how many times has this happened to you? your friends stop talking to you.

the friends that felt like family,

the friends that helped you realize you were free to be yourself

you have no words to describe the loss.

how many times has this happened to you? the only thing keeping you alive is the fear of what they’d do to themselves if you died

the only thing keeping you alive loses a little more meaning every time you see them and they give you that look

you drift through your life, not doing anything important, at most writing a few poems every now and then.

how many times has this happened to you? you miss them,

you can name every part of each of them you miss.

you can’t tell them.

whenever you try to tell them the words catch in your throat.

the words catch in your throat a lot these days, along with your sobs.

how many times has this happened to you?

you feel crushed by an immeasurable loneliness at all times.

you try and reach out to make new friends, but nothing, nobody is ever the same.

you never feel safe around them.

you never feel like you could spend the rest of your life with them, or die content when hugging them

how many times has this happened to you?

[powdermelonkeg]

It gets better

You're burning rice now, and the vegetables you sauté only come out half-cooked

You're almost afraid to go into the kitchen at all because that was your mother's domain, not yours

You don't want to dirty more dishes

You don't want to waste more ingredients

How does this appliance work? Where's the instructions? Why aren't they clear enough?

You can't dice tomatoes; they squish into pulp and you have to toss them

You can't make bread; it's too dense, too hard, and you can't make yourself eat it, even though you feel obligated to

You're afraid to turn the beater on, because remember last time? Where you messed up?

It gets better

Someday, you'll make your best friend a bunch of mini quiches so she has a quick breakfast whenever she wants

Someday, you'll make double servings of your favorite food from memory

Someday, you'll accidentally make gelatin that's still got heat from the last time that pan cooked peppers, and you'll learn a little more about how spice works

Someday, you'll improvise a recipe you've never even tried unaltered before, and you'll make a perfect pumpkin cheesecake

And the cookies will be a little too hard, and you'll lament not eating them as dough

And you'll forget about the half & half you asked for, and have no idea what you want to do with it

And you'll linger on your failures less and less, because that cheesecake turned out perfectly

It gets better

Keep trying

[wheniseeyoucry]

Please don't expect me to always be nice. There are times when my inner bitch begging to come out

[sepulcher-of-the-light]

© Lucas Garcete, El polen estrellado (Star pollen)

Escucha la respiración de las flores al rozar la guadaña del otoño; escucha la plegaria de sus estigmas, sin desgarrar la memoria del polen.

Listen to the breath of the flowers as they brush against the scythe of autumn; listen to the prayer of their stigmas, without tearing the memory of the pollen.

[perasperaadastrid]

"I am rooted, but I flow."

-Virginia Woolf

[wingsofahoneybee]

i don't believe in ghosts, but i love you, so i will let you haunt me. i will open the windows in january and imagine you standing here in our kitchen. i will let my hand go numb, pretending i am holding yours. i understand now why people see flickering lights and drafty houses and believe in the impossible. i understand it now, and i will make an exception for you.

[apoemaday]

Bees, Honeycombs, Honey

by Hayan Charara

Bees, thousands and thousands, surviving in a hive under the soffit; bees, honeycombs, and honey, and dampness, and old wood sticky in the sunlight;

and the beekeeper’s hand, carefully, and slowly, vacuuming, and taking; the bees tumbling, gently, into the makeshift hive; honeybees, and honeycombs,

and honey, glistening; honey, the only food that will not spoil; honey, pulled from the pyramids, still sticky, and sweet, thousands of years later;

I may not believe, but I want to; and the bees before my eyes are now disappearing; bees God in the Qur’an inspired to build homes in mountains

and trees; bees that built homes in the trees near the grave in Detroit; and the bees in Jerusalem’s graves; bees in every city, and in every age; bees,

honey, and honeycombs, through disaster after disaster; bees building, and scouting, and dancing; bees mating, protecting, and attacking; the bees

are now disappearing, and dying; and the bees the beekeeper cannot save are dying but still guarding the empty hive, butting their heads against

my children, boys who will grow to be men and build their own homes, now dipping fingers into honey darkening on the ground; they are dying; the hive

is gone; the queen is gone; thousands and thousands, gone; but the bees will come back, and the hive will come back; if not here, then elsewhere; and there will be more bees

making more honeycombs, more honey, and more bees; and one day all the bees will be gone; gone, and gone; honeycombs, and houses, gone; and trees, gone; oak, elm,

birch, gone; all trees, flowers, gone; and birds, leaves, branches, cicadas, and crickets, grasshoppers, ants, worms, gone; and cities, and rivers, big cities, small cities,

big rivers, small rivers, gardens, and homes; and homes; the bees will be gone, and only their honey will survive, and we will not be around to taste it.

[hemstreetedward]

"Delicate Hour"

[gennsoup]

Heat will die down, the road will cool, but on the fields we've left sluggish bees will thrum. A brook will come flowing over our hands, so we'll be able to wash off the film, road dust--tender, bitter.

Irina Ratushinskaya, Some day