Today, especially, I want to Beelieve

Pardon me for playing with part of a basic manifesto for the tv series The X-Files, but it seems to fit really well with today’s celebration of National Honeybee Day. Although honeybees play a significant role in agricultural production, they aren’t native to North America. I lean much more toward supporting most pollinators through the activities of the Xerces Society.

X Files: I want to believe

From the reading I’ve done, much of the honeybees’ decline can be attributed to agricultural pesticides. So some-to-many farmers seem to be cutting off their noses to spite their faces so to speak. If we focus on creating a world that’s healthier for native pollinators and let bee keepers and farmers sort out their priorities, we’ll probably all benefit.

Bee Whisperer

By Laura Secord

For weeks we’ve seen some wild winds.

Today, I find my hives knocked over.

A season’s honey smeared in rivers

on the ground. I stand their domes again.

The bees are swarming in the trees and fighting

against the gale. I watch one entire colony

trapped by a whirlwind, carried out and up

across the Green. I run to follow and see them

swept over the river and caught in a maple grove.

                  Can anyone call bees?

Alone before the water’s edge,

in desperate worry for my colony,

not knowing what to do, I hold

my arms high, as if to block the wind,

and cry like swarming bees. I speak

about our apple blooms, promise

them acres of blossoms and honey mounds.

                  Your domes are upright, your babies waiting.

Suddenly, in one black cloud, they return

across the water, above my raised

head and waving arms, over the Green.

When I return, almost

horizontal against the raging winds,

I climb to my orchard, and find

the hives filling back

with colonies of bees.

Notes:

This poem is from my historical verse narrative, An Art, a Craft, a Mystery (Livingston Press, 2022), the story of two women who immigrated to the colonies as indentured servants in the seventeenth century and lived along the Connecticut River. They were both healers and victims of the early witch-hunt delusion in colonial Connecticut. In this poem, Kate Harrison speaks about the harassment she suffered after her husband’s death, and her response to the harassment.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.