The bees, this year, <br />have come before the swallows dare <br />and take the wings of April <br />inadvisedly; <br /> <br />ignoring the cloud of jasmine around the open door, <br />incurious, it seems, about the front garden’s offerings, <br />they swoop into the house, <br />take a left turn where the corridor gets darker, <br />and land up in the front room; where <br />they swoop again, then like lost souls <br />start for here and there, change flight-plan, <br />and end up nosing uselessly against the window <br />which doesn’t open; crawl a bit; and <br />surprisingly soon, fall down, on their backs, <br />legs folded in some final surrender <br />just enough like a human being, to chill… <br /> <br />I take the kitchen strainer <br />since it’s larger than a jam-jar, reaches further, <br />dab a touch of first-aid honey on the rim, <br />persuade them to settle on its promise, <br />and whisk them off to the front door, <br />tap them into freedom. <br /> <br />I thought that bees were focussed, busy, pretty bright, <br />with radar, iPods, mobile/ cell-phones all built in; <br />this year, they’re aimless as illegal immigrants <br />hoping to exist, but not to work.. <br />surely even wild bees have a sense of home? <br />‘Go back where you came from…’ I yell at them <br />like some nationalist speaker at a rally… <br />there is now no Limbo for these lost souls, it seems; <br />bees, who through the centuries <br />were said to have close links to human souls… <br />it’s puzzling, disturbing, too close for comfort, <br />or for ignoring.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/wild-bees-lost-souls/
