The Dreams of Bees
As the still bright sun goes down behind the clouds over the woods on a cold and windy day, a Blue Banded Bee gets ready for the long dark night through which he cannot fly away. For a while he comes and he goes but eventually to keep, he locks his jaws on the stem and that way goes to sleep.
And on the way he dreams of the things, of bees. While stretching his wings and kicking his legs he turns this way and that to indicate, he sees. The blue of a flower in bloom, a little nectar or pollen, a mate of his kind. Zooming in and out among the grasses and between the trees. God knows he will find.
Dreaming in imagery a thinker could never know, the things a bee is and does. Making his home near enough to his kind, making it on the go.
And all the while, he keeps his big eyes open for danger and, marvelously, knows no foe.
*
She, in her clay nest looking over her brood, waiting to wake to the sun once more to do the dreams of bees, given the weather’s mood. To find a blue flower, some pollen and nectar, a mate perhaps, of her kind, a choiceless love that does not intrude.
She knows no time but what she does as the need presents in mind. Yes, bees have minds. Did you think you are the only ones, you and your kind?
And when they are done and dead, no one to mourn, the little ones fed, it happens o’er, never once knowing the ill of human dread.
Rise up little one, to the golden flight, though there be a little fright, Thou art a queen, of light.
Rise up, to know your right.
*
Each bee new to the fact of being a bee, each flower a rare discovery, sipping the nectar of the earth can only be heavenly, to a new bee. And all the other things that happen anew in a bee’s busy day, you see.
Chased by a Dragon or Wasp or even a bird or three. Evading death a hundred ways, the wind no less a threat, when hungry, being as small a bee.
They have been cold and wet of late. Holding on for days and nights before they ate. To live and die as is their fate. And all to know a mate, a mate.
That’s their fate, and their faith, it’s never too late.
*
And then I look up and what do I see, but the gods of the sub-continent aligned to a V. Sailing or running along on the wind, aflame, a-coloured, gloriously unhinged. What may be.
Was it me? With them or not, I can’t now see. A b… on the wing, I could equally be. ((:
What is this I have seen? The passage overhead, alongside, of fantastic creatures, warriors, a king and a queen. A wonderful procession of the characters of innocent mythical mind a keen.
Then to my rear I see the world, a-burning where there is no flame, consuming yellow arise from the earth, a perfect dissolution that knows no blame – it’s not you or me, no such fame.
This way or that, there was no escape, from these hard won laurels no man could possibly ape. T’was real enough, to me, all form agape.
The end I see, nothing to bemoan, but to set me free. The death of you and me, but no, not Thee.
Or was it just a dream after all, of bees, no more to be seen or fall? A dream, too few do recall.
No, t’was real enough to me, my friend. Know though, this is not the end.
For we meet in the wilderness, of mind, where thought would only offend.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
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Mystic Nomad
Nomadic by nature, doesn’t mean they have no home. Any place is home to a nomad as long as their need is filled. And in the filling of their need Nature’s need is filled, they are not separate.
One need fits to another the way a tree does to the Earth, as all things fit to some thing at some time.
There is an out-of-the-way place where these little beauties go to sleep at night. I am the only one I know of that goes there and I can’t see that changing. It’s a small clearing in the middle of a field at the edge of a forest and off the beaten track. It is a special place for these beautiful creatures.
Towards the end of their day they fly in and circle their favoured roosting site, a dried out grass stem in this case. They land at the top of the stem, as far from the ground as possible and grip it in their jaws as they settle in for the night, face to the ground – usually, but there’s always the odd one.
Face down, probably because that is the direction danger would most likely come from while they sleep, it’s a defensible position and can easily be abandoned if necessary. It just makes sense to have your array of detection senses, antennae, eyes, mouth and feet facing any danger.
I often watch them at dusk as they jostle for position on the twig, seeming to prefer to join up from above, makes sense as they fly in from above. When one does there is a pushing and shoving with legs and jaws, from the front and back, but no violence, as positions are adjusted to fit the newcomer.
At times dislodging one or another so it flies off the twig and comes in from behind again and the process begins over until there’s not enough light and they have settled positions for the duration of the dark hours, it takes a little time to get to sleep time.
It looks comical and sweet at the same time, innocent, and makes me smile, what a wonderful nature we have.
They are not unlike children in their innocence, and how they might sleepily jostle for space in a bed they share.
*
It’s a popular place for the little creatures, with native bees and wasps of different kinds making a home of it, a safe harbour to rest at night. Care must be taken not to blunder into a wasp nest or disturb the roosting bees, don’t want to get stung or intrude. I approach the bees slowly, careful not to strike their perch or loom threateningly over them.
It’s not a hunt, it’s a prayer.
There are times when it seems my presence at a metre or so is enough to disturb them, and times when they seem fast asleep while the sun is still up and I can shoot away to my hearts content.
They live their little lives noticed by few but their own sweet selves, but are well accounted for in the tapestry of nature. Little weavers of life that they are.
Their big green eyes and long white furry manes, specks of pollen showing where they’ve been. A tale yet to be told.
Without them we would surely be less.
Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
King of Flies – Robber of Life
Burp!
At a small clearing in the forest the grass had grown long and green with the recent rains. Ideal breeding ground for some creatures, ideal hunting ground for others.
Large by the usual size of flies around here, this hunter reigned. It moved easily with grace, never seeming to falter in take-off, capture or landing. There was an efficiency about it, no unnecessary movement or sound, a consummate conservationist designed for stealth.
He sat high in the long untidy grass in wait for something to emerge from the dark shadows below. As soon as a suitable creature, unaware, was within reach up he went to capture with those long spiny legs – the better to grip with – and deliver the ‘coup de grace’ to the creature with a sharp and deadly lancet sheathed in its strong stubby proboscis, usually to somewhere behind the head, via a cocktail of neurotoxin and digestive enzymes that rapidly paralyse and consume.
Cranefly was the prey of incidence today, not too big and not too small, and available in abundance right now – it also has very long legs that help trap it in the hunters embrace, and it moves at a speed and pattern that was easy to track.
The Robber, or Assassin Fly – so called for the way it quickly and silently snatches the life from its prey – was well fed this day.
*
It pays to be present to see what is now, and not occupied in the memory – which is then and a bridge to a robber of a different kind.
© Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge
Nature's Place 
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