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Encounter Down the Forest Way

I wandered down the forest way
out into clearing bright
flowers wild in breezes sway
burnished in the noon day light

drowsy from the heat I stray
beneath a drooping limb
above I hear a scolding jay
as weary eyes go dim

I fell into a heavy trance
astrally I seemed to rise
Is this a vision quest perchance?
or just a heavy mid-day meal (that's how I'd surmise!)

but wafting up the path toward
a giant hivelike pod of black
from its gaping maw a torrent poured
and casts me rough upon my back

stunned I stared up to the sky
and felt a creature on my chest
scuttled up and stared into my eye
a strange chimera queerly dressed

bulbous eyes, antennae whipped
abdomen striped black and yellow
with a stinger poisoned dipp'd
a hellish looking fearful fellow!

aghast was I when first he spoke
and gathered 'round me all the clan
for in a woman's voice it spoke (Oh! She's not a bloke!)
"we've come to warn you, son of man!

for centuries we've toiled afield
from blossoms taken nectar’s drop
so all of men enjoy our yield
and harvest fruitful crop

but soon, so soon the season nears
for all my children here to swarm
so from the feast come famine years
forgetting summers bright and warm

we are the few, the last breath of our kind
and must needs take to flight
and to shortsighted men so blind
we grieve at future's blight

so to you who lay there struck so dumb
we offer this lucid trance
that mayhaps it's just a world grown numb
and can be saved (perchance)"

and all at once they're gone
and snapping to my feet
I see I'd slept through night to dawn
and sweating in a sultry heat

rushing home through lea and vale
I stop all the workers in the grove
gather round to tell my tale
of the future's thread we wove

and as I spoke I swear on high
a honeybee flew near
with knowing eyes and a grateful sigh
she and her sisters lingered here...

Copyright © Andrew Foreman | Year Posted 2014

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