In honour of a Bee

One warm day at the end of March
the Widow Wyile’s crocus
patch was abuzz with eager
bees    translucent amber wings
working as their faintly furry bodies
searched the saffron pistils
all day long climbing
into the bells of snowdrops
basking in the petalled crucibles
of crocuses open to the sun
another moment to marvel into

Then too there was the buzz
and drone of flies dotting
the orange clapboard of her house
bluebottles iridescent
showy amid the wing rustling rest
and the snowdrop she’d first spotted
nearly a month past still standing fresh

But at her feet lay one bee
dead—why oh why
its legs, stinger, antennae
curled in, its body no longer
pulsing after one spring flight

She lays it gently to join
last year’s leaves
so they together may
nourish some future
shoot of life