This evening meadow is gilded
with goldenrod, whose blooms are enlivened
by bees tonguing their nectar. The dusk
is falling quicker and the darkness
fast approaching. But, for now, they revel
in the relief of quenched drought, coaxed
from the hive by aureate autumnal
yellow; a landscape rebecoming. To think,
just earlier, I held in my hands
honeycomb, and watched the delicate
probing of antenna, the determined
working of jaws, until
the propolis-opening gave way
and from the hexagonal birth chamber
a honeybee emerged. Freshly born,
wings unfold to flight, for the meadow—
her destiny— beckons. She merges into
the mystic, another floral figment driven always
by insatiable hunger, instinctual love.