Bees

New Buds of Spring

I am a big fuzzy bumble bee buzzing in my garden among the new buds of Spring
The woman that tends my garden also delights in the smell of the sweetest thing
But when I am buzzing among the flowers she doesn't come near
Could it be that for me she has only fear?

Her little boy is her only child and they live at the farm by the creek
Alone he is with no other children to play games of hide and seek
His father keeps bees in a box for their honey
The boy plays with the bees instead and he thinks it's so funny

Sometimes he torments them throws rocks at their house
Then they chase him all around in a game of cat and mouse
The honey bees are always around him so he learns to calm his fear
Even though he is stung many times he never sheds a tear

Once a Queen of the honey bees left the box to find a new place to nest
She came into the boy's house and found a good place to rest
Her workers followed and they built her a new home within a home
In the wall next to the bed where the boy slept so he would not have far to roam
Every night he went to sleep with the sound of buzzing bees in his ears
It was a big buzzing sound that came through his wall in those years

One fine Spring day the boy came to my garden where I buzz
He called out to me... Ho there big bumble bee will you let me play with your fuzz?
When I alighted on an unfolding blossom he came close and studied me with his big eyes
Then he reached out and touched me please believe me for I tell you no lies
I was already so full of nectar and heavy with pollen that I could not play
But his finger was so gentle as he stroked my fuzzy back on the flower where I lay

From then on the boy greeted me each new Spring with his gentle touch
But as the boy grew older new emotions began to stir in him so much
And as he became a young man he realized new feelings and that there was something amiss
For you see this young man never met a young lady with whom he could share a sweet kiss

His parents left the farm and took him to the city where he could make friends his own age
The next Spring he was gone and I was so sad but I did not fall into a rage
He missed his buzzing friends on the farm where he left them with his old toys
He went to live in the city where surely he would find new joys
There he became like me a bumble bee buzzing in a garden among the new buds of Spring
And he searched for the most precious new bud in the garden hoping to find just one thing

And when he found that one perfect new bud he knew exactly what to say...

You are the most beautiful new bud of Spring that this bee has seen today
And as I watch you unfurl your fresh new blossom there is nothing I will miss
If you will only allow me to alight on your petals and share with you your first kiss

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This poem is autobiographical. These are my true experiences with the bees that I shared my childhood with.

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The sands of time past keep shifting according to how we remember or forget or refashion it in hindsight, which is no sight at all.
Kajal Basu