I've often reminded myself to "follow the generous impulse"--to give the compliment or the gift or the seat when the impulse arises, rather than letting it pass (as it too often does). It seems to magnify the generosity of the world, or at the least gives it one more form of expression. And it occurs to me that writing these little poems daily is something of the same thing,following the impulse to give form to what's right there, in the ether or heart or scratching at the back of the brain. Anyhow, whether it produces art or anything close, it seems worth it.
Notes on the poem: I was not the only person who noticed the New York Times story yesterday on the vanishing honeybees. I see that it's among the most e-mailed stories today. The National Academy of Sciences report says that bats and hummingbirds, two other important pollinators, are also disappearing. Bees, interestingly, are symbols of the soul. And of course, I've been thinking about them on my own lately. Bees and Emily Dickinson... (The link is wild...)
This is another sijo. A quickie, to revisit later. Or soon.
#28
Gone
She scrapes dried honey from the frames, white boxes that once held bees.
In silent groves the almonds bloom and wait, an empty flowering.
Missing her queens, the beekeeper minds their abandoned hives.
