It was curled on the pavement, forehead to knees,
as if it had died while bowing. Its stripes
were citrine-yellow, and the black of a moonless
starless, clear night. It did not
belong on a street, to be stepped on, I picked it
up in a fold of glove, and in the taxi
canted it onto a floral hankie,
a small, thin, cotton death-glade–
and the bee moved, one foreleg,
like an arm, feebly, as if old. It seemed
not long for this world, and it seemed I could not
save it, and had been saved, by its gesture,
from smothering it all day in my bag. I would have
liked to set it in a real glade,
but I thought that it might still, right now,
be suffering, yet I could not kill it
directly–I shook it, from the hankie, out the window,
onto West End Avenue,
hoping that, before a tire
killed it, instantly, it would hear
and feel huge rushes of tread and wind,
like flight, like the bee-god’s escape.
- Books & the Arts
- November 2, 2000
Green Bee
Green Bee
It was curled on the pavement, forehead to knees,
as if it had died while bowing. Its stripes
were citrine-yellow, and the black of a moonless
starless, clear night. It did not
belong on a street, to be stepped on, I picked it
up in a fold of glove, and in the taxi
canted it onto a floral hankie,
a small, thin, cotton death-glade–
and the bee moved, one foreleg,
like an arm, feebly, as if old. It seemed
not long for this world, and it seemed I could not
save it, and had been saved, by its gesture,
from smothering it all day in my bag. I would have
liked to set it in a real glade,
but I thought that it might still, right now,
be suffering, yet I could not kill it
directly–I shook it, from the hankie, out the window,
onto West End Avenue,
hoping that, before a tire
killed it, instantly, it would hear
and feel huge rushes of tread and wind,
like flight, like the bee-god’s escape.
