Bees Are The Optimists

THE OMENS ARRIVE XXIII.  August 16, 2015


You 
can’t argue with a light display like I 
have seen both outside in the world
and inside in my deepest mind.  I am
chosen, yet I fear. How can I, at 
nearly seventy-eight years, do all
that this omen insists I must do?
A day at a time.  Resting when I can
rest, working when time opens.
Speaking when my opportunity comes.
–The Omens Arrive VII.

My own hope springs from a mysterious
source, deeper even than my Muse, from
that core the dragon once guarded, that inner
circling sun I released for service years
ago.  I know how to risk all.  I’ve 
penetrated fear and dread, kept despair away
for years. Why?  Because it’s how I’m
made and why I’m loved.
–The Omens Arrive IX.

Bees are the optimists.  Do they know
they are threatened with extinction?
Probably not.  They find my new
sunflowers, planted last year but only
rising to their full height this year
when I can’t get enough comfort and
reassurance.  Yet the more I give away,
the more I receive.  This must be where
that myth about the little pot boiling up
more and more porridge comes from.
In me courage rises again and again.
I give it away as fast as I can.  I’ve seen
butterflies in the cosmos and lantana, 
bumblebees, and even hummingbirds,
but now come honey bees.  They feed us
more than we conceive.  This year the heat
kept me inside for weeks.  The weeds 
were rampant everywhere.  I worked
from urgency to urgency and never
caught up.  I did make spaghetti sauce.
I have enough figs to eat and make
preserves.  Zinnias finally flower, but
it’s the eight-feet high sunflowers
that seduce the bees.  If the bees are
at work, we will win.