6/12/09

Bee poem

Since I became a beekeeper, everything bee-related seems to be leaping out at me. I heard this poem on NPR today; it just happens to be written by an LA poet who was a college classmate of mine (never mind what year). Enjoy.
-Sue

Fifties Music



While women sip their daiquiris by the pool,
and men blow smoke into the jacarandas,
the radio plays "Fly Me to the Moon."

A child nearby, on finding a dead bee,
conducts its funeral in petunia beds,
as ants are trying to amputate a wing.

But even though the bee is dead, it stings
her fiercely on the palm, and dies again.
She studies her small hand in disbelief.

Some fathers offer ice cubes from their highballs,
the station plays "Volare," and the bee
swings up to heaven on its single wing.


"Fifties Music" by Leslie Monsour, from The Alarming Beauty of the Sky. © Red Hen Press, 2005. Reprinted with permission.