Nancy Scott McBride’s most recent poem to appear here was “The Tambourine” (April 2019).

Bees in the Cherry Trees
By Nancy Scott McBride

As soon as the blossoms are fully open,
the bees come to gather the precious pollen.
They’re all business, the bees,
working the trees from dawn to dusk
until the petals fade and fall.
Time was, when my ears worked better,
I could hear the buzzing from the back porch,
ten or fifteen feet away.
Now I wait for traffic noise to slow on the road,
then walk out, stand under the nearest tree
and let the sound envelope and invade me,
not so much hearing as feeling it.
It comes inside and takes me over, the
ecstasy of creatures doing the one single
thing they were born to do, and in this
way I become a part of it, the ritual,
the singing and the song,
the humming and the honey.