Nature's Place

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.

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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.

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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.

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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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