The Bee's Knees
It's passing strange;
I never liked bees very much.
--thought them ugly, mean and hazardous.
But now they disappear,
together with the crops dependent
on them to survive. My sentiments
have crossed the battlefield and joined
a more quixotic enemy--one who feeds me
first, then falls away to sacrifice his sting,
his life, and his creative sweetness.
I cannot celebrate. Belatedly it is
the Charleston I hear
that echoes that ironic requiem
my brothers sang and danced to--
that burlesque of rhyme that mocked
our noble insect friend.
(We didn't know just what we do!)
We and our "beekeepers" made
a travesty of enterprise to raid
the hives and carry off the fruits
of all the buzzing, patient labor
from the little guys who wanted just
to leave a happy nursery
before they died.
It seems the lords above the hives
don't keep them very well at all.
The makers of insecticides still forge ahead
in competition with themselves,
their killing wares more perfect each successive year
while in another room they play with genes
to introduce a super flower;
how sweet!
Such are the blessings of democracy.
OUr fuzzy friends still fall
upon their hairy knees, then rise
to buzz a hymn of thanks to
all the plutocratic giants enabled
by the ballot boxes, spilling out
their "yes" to corporate power.
Or do you question that?
~
Copyright © Robert Ludden | Year Posted 2014
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