The Year of Clover Honey

The Last Really Good Shack - porch

It was the second spring in the old farmhouse,
you seeded the open meadow with red clover.
A common cover crop,
it did just that,
covering the slope
in luxurious rich deep green leaves,
topped by scarlet globes
of soft feathered blossoms.
Honeybees, intoxicated with
sweet perfume, staggered in the warm spring breeze,
humming their drunken songs
in sweet unison.

The bees song bewitched us-
a sirens song.
Mesmerized,
we walked across the meadow,
thigh high in clover,
waist deep in bees.
The hillside undulating,
shimmering with invisible wings.
The sound of a million bees
singing.
Their voices so deep,
it echoed in our bodies.
We held our hands out to feel the vortices of their wings.
We were carried in a wind
of wing song.

We were golden with pollen.

The honey was rich that year-
deep amber
and filled with the song of a million bees.

(revised 2020)

theories of the bee and the blossom

buzy bee

the quality of light,
the intensity of color-
the bee and the blossom.

the assumption
of innocence or guilt-
the bee and the blossom.

the debate
of nature and nurture-
the bee and the blossom.

the giving and receiving
of sacred rites-
the bee and the blossom.

the tender ministrations
lovingly received-
the bee and the blossom.

An April Afternoon in the Garden

April garden 7 2015

April garden 8 2015

A beautiful afternoon is always more beautiful in an April garden. The columbines are putting on a colorful display in such wonderful combinations. A blue is blooming, lots of mauve and lavender, a few frilly white blooms and many double blossoms again this year. Our favorite is a small salmon and yellow bloom on a tall slender plant- a wild columbine from seeds we harvested on a walk a few years ago.

April garden 2 2015

My large hosta, for some reason, (probably chipmunks!) has not returned. I dug where the roots should be and no sign at all. That may be one purchase I will make this year – a few hostas to fill in the center of the garden.

April garden 6 2015

Our baby dogwoods are growing with abandon – and we had 18 blooms across the three largest trees this year! Yea! We will move a few of the trees out into the yard this fall. And the two redbuds will be moved to flank the western edge of the garden.

April garden 2015

Big fat bumblebees were very busy working across the garden and making their acquaintance with each bloom.

buzy bee

This weekend, we will head to the garden center for lots of flowers and plants to fill the pots for the patio. Then all that is left to do is enjoy the beauty. And water and fertilize and deadhead and weed and weed and weed.

Green is the color of April-
pale green of tender shoots,
deeper shade across the heart shaped leaves,
sprinkled with petals of all flowers
on the path of the dancing honey bee.

In the garden, I sat very still and asked

hanging garden

will you sting?

‘not very likely’
as she busily bent to her work
cataloging the latin names
of each herb and flower

will you dance?

sniffing she glanced at me
‘each movement I make is dance
and each step will be danced
for my sisters and brothers
to follow the map
of my intricate steps”

will they sing?

with a sigh
‘each breath is a song
sung to ancestral hives
and honeycombed futures
humming hymns
sweet and low’

will you stay?

‘yes, yes is the answer
as long as alfalfa is green
and the almond
blush pink
and the wide world
opens its blossoms
welcoming us to enter”