She seemed lost or tired (or both, like me) the carpenter bee sitting in my driveway hot in the midday sun, and while she wasn’t too keen on being seen, or moved, for that matter, I shuttled her onto a notecard — Post Office, Library, Lettuce — and sat her down safely on the cool peaty mulch in the shade of shrubs in full purple bloom, left a small puddle of water in case she was thirsty, then said a little prayer so small and so large in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, Amen.
Taking center stage in the felt and fiber exhibit was a shrouded human-size figure, death wrapped in yellow — the color of butter and bees — but called Chrysalis to imply resilience
resilience in the face of everything
OMG, the everything we face sometimes feels like death — its foul smell invading even the simple pleasures
it’s hard to ignore the crises in woods that are dying it’s hard to ignore the crises in the violence of a Sunday drive it’s hard to ignore the crises when even my favorite characters are battling hate and headlines
every thing of the injustice
I long for the days when my favorite characters could just fall off ferry boats and have sex in on-call rooms.
When their soundtrack was mine on a Sunday drive that didn’t require white knuckles and a prayer.
When the woods were lush and fertile, the promise of the butterfly born from the Chrysalis, color and light and HOPE.
It makes you want to lie down, wrap covers around your tired body, and sleep a deep and dreamless sleep,
because these days even the dreams are pockmarked and ravaged
and you wake gasping for breath, the bile of it all burning your throat,
a burn that nothing will assuage…except the last Jiffy corn muffin dripping with butter and drizzled with honey,
a final gift from the bees, who swoop and swarm en masse, before leaving for good.
If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gif
Preparing herself for the inevitable, the sandpiper — usually found along the coast makes her home now by a small pond in the woods three miles from shore. It’s quiet here, most days, except when the wind carries clamor from the south, and she’s been welcomed graciously by the turtles and frogs, the heron and wood ducks. They’ve come here, too, this protected space with ample shade and shallows to share with anyone who needs asylum from the rising conflict. You might say we are refugees, displaced from the familiar by forces not of our making finding exile here, making life despite the storm, saying grace for the bounty
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