From my window I watch a bumblebee visiting the flowers in my garden. It samples the tiny white veronica flowers and then moves on to the pale orange and yellow lantana.  Our climbing Solana vine in the backyard is a favorite hangout for the furry black and yellow fellows, where I often hear their buzzing, which prompted this humble poem:

Welcome

yellow and black-banded thief

robbing perfumed nectar

from my apricot blossoms.

With buzzing industry

you leave none untouched

dislodging velvet petals

to shower downwards,

spring snowflakes

carpeting the grass.

Take what you may from

these ephemeral bursts of glory.

For in summer’s glow

I’ll gather golden apricots,

sweet surrenders of

vanished blossoms.

Mission completed,

winged Robin Hood

of my backyard forest.

 I’m reminded of the music “The Flight of the Bumble Bee” by Rimski-Korsakov and find their flight pattern humorous, as if they were a bit intoxicated by the honey. A Google search informs me that these yellow and black-striped visitors are the non-native Bombus terrestris, imported from Europe. The population of the native orange and black Chilean bumblebees is in decline. Now I know I’ll have my antennae perked, on the lookout for a native, though I’m unlikely to find one here in the city.