Jane Williams: ‘Ode to a worker bee’

Ode to a worker bee

Who hasn’t been where you are now
caught on the wrong side of the glass
exhausted disoriented
believing one thing to be another.
Five eyes and still no exit in sight.
When I coax you into the box
my hands become accidents waiting
to unhappen you,
I cannot think on which bee bits
they may unwittingly harm.
At the backdoor’s threshold
I flick my wrist, half expect you to fall
and crawl to wherever it is your kind go
given half the chance—to die.
Instead I am staggered by the speed
with which you fly from me
also by how straight the line
(the beeline?) … going going gone
to your hive home I presume
where I have since learned you perform
the waggle dance mapping a flight path
to ambrosia
through the land of the giants
deep into dandelion forests.
Unquantifiable the treasures
of a life measured in weeks.

Jane Williams