Wednesday, January 15, 2014


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. 





No comments:

Post a Comment