Tag Archives: Humming

1251. We strain to renew our capacity to wonder, to shock ourselves into astonishment once again. ~Shana Alexander

by

15

What
if you were
a beetle,
and a soft wind

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and a certain allowance of time
had summoned you
out of your wrappings,
and there you were,

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so many legs
hardening,
maybe even
more than one pair of eyes

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and the whole world
in front of you?
And what if you had wings
and flew

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into the garden,
then fell
into the up-tipped
face

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of a white flower,
and what if you had
a sort of mouth,
a lip

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to place close
to the skim
of honey
that kept offering itself –

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what would you think then
of the world
as, night and day,
you were kept there –

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oh happy prisoner –
sighing, humming,
roaming
that deep cup?
~How Everything Adores Being Alive,
by Mary Oliver

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. ~Isaiah 40:29  ✝

**Photos 1, 4, 6, 7, 8 by Mandy Disher; images 2, 3, 5 via Pinterest

1249. The bee’s life is like a magic well: the more you draw from it, the more it fills with water. ~Karl Von Frisch

by

15

Bees do have a smell, you know,
and if they don’t they should,
for their feet are dusted with
spices from a million flowers.
~Ray Bradbury

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I could do that.
I could nuzzle into those blossoms,
bury my nose in that corolla,
rub my belly all over with that
succulent pollen.

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I could live in that body
with the requisite pose,
with the honeybee’s reticent
enthusiasm,

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never taking too much from any one blossom,
never quarreling with my fellow foragers,
keeping my pollen-sacs well-balanced,
eyes shined, antennae erect

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I could master the dance steps–
I love to dance.
And I have no qualms about
humming the solar anthem
dawn to dusk,
praising the fire in my wings as the one
and only engine of pure transport.

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Just don’t ask me
to enter the hive. I get anxious
even thinking of that buzzing horde,
packed together in angelic densities. Inside
I can’t tell which are the brood chambers
and which are the tombs, which is the honeycomb
and which are the catacombs.

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To whom do I bow? Where do I spit?
What if the guard bees take me for an interloper?
And what will the queen do
if she catches me alone?

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So maybe
I’m not ready for that life.
Maybe I haven’t even figured out
how to be a human–

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how to walk straight
pay attention,
try to keep my head out of the clouds.
~Honeybeeing by Charles Goodrich

Eat honey, my son, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. ~Proverbs 24:13 ✝

**Images via Pinterest and Pixabay