The drone of the crop duster drifts through my window
like a helicopter looking for a landing.
Birds sing and flit around the feeders
But where are the butterflies?
What is a will-o'-the-wisp?
What is a whip-poor-will?
The bees that escaped their hives in protest
Of a neighbor’s rough handling swarmed
My porch, my yard, my window screens.
After two days, they rediscovered their hives
And lifted the siege. I went to the grocery.
The anniversary of a death approaches
But I’m not a Buddhist to celebrate the end.
I’m not pining like the doves who coo
From the highwire from where they see what they see
But where are the butterflies? Where are the pond frogs?
The crop duster returns in the evening to herald dusk
the way frogs once did.
A murder of crows caw from the top of a tree
Struck by lightning. Will they remember my face?
Bjorn at dVerse Poets gave us a poem from Pablo Neuvda's Book of Questions, Why do trees concal their roots? as a miniprompt because, says Bjorn "I prefer questions to answers."
10 comments:
Seems we always have a tradeoff. Crop dusting and food or...
There is always collateral damage it seems.
The dissapearance of bees will come back to bite us I fear... but as Roth says we will nead the bread.
The problem (methinks) is that we've been led to believe we can't have food enough without chemical spraying. Thanks, Dwight, for commenting.
Right, so much of what we love to eat depends on pollination.
We don’t have crop dusters here, Yvonne, but the drone helicoptered into my imagination. I would be sad and worry if there were no butterflies or bees in my garden.
Thanks Kim. I saw one beautiful butterfly a couple days ago and it made me realize it was the first.
Yvonne, your poem is stunning in every possible way ... I read it aloud and it felt like a wonderful stream of consciousness .... well done, my Friend.
I still see bees and butterflies here. I cannot imagine a world without them.
Thank you Helen!!!
Bees, yes. Butterflies few and far between. Thanks, Truedessa for commenting.
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