A goddamn bee
Anonymous artist
A goddamn bee is about looking for hope at a time when we are attuned to despair. Poetry, with its focus on language, structure and metre, seemed best suited for this task, as it requires the same kind of careful attention we need to award the material world. Hope in this poem is Spring, personified, who seeks to help us after a brutal winter. Yet, accustomed as we are to inconvenience and bother, the pollen is interpreted as yet another daily struggle to be overcome.
A goddamn bee
I lined my balc’ny with flowers,
hoping to see
a goddamn bee
Friends trekked from across the city,
they must have thought
they were for them
I read the paper this morning,
hoping to see
a goddamn bee
The Min’ster of Defense, page one,
a suit and tie:
“a war takes time”
I went off to work regardless
hoping to see
a goddamn bee
I walked through the trees, gazing up
at canopies
in awe
‘Copter crossing,
buzzing over trees
the Min’ster in sight,
but not a bee
My winter coat,
wrapped up in pollen
Spring had sent for me
I brushed it off
but what a fool,
what a fool I can be
Had I kept it there,
I could have seen
a goddamn bee