Endurance

The evening garden is full of bees.

The grass is tickling my knees.

And in the kitchen, in the larder,

Softened butter gets no harder.

Summer’s come. And Spring departs–

That patroness of finest arts–

With pleasant breezes, fecund hours,

Amorous, the birds and flowers,

Pollen spurting from each stamen,

Birds cavorting forth, and playing

Pipes, invisible and shrill:

A tinny symphony’s tiny trill.

Their song, now languid. Breeze, now still.

But bees reside in Summer’s sun,

And buzz and flit and dance for fun,

All glitter-rigged and pointy-tailed,

Miles flown on wee transparent sails,

A hollow tree, their hallowed den,

Where queens recycle cyclamen.

We humans droop while bees now surge.

What energy!  What drive! What verve!

We seek the shade.  We drip.  We drop.

Our skin’s not meant for sun so hot,

Not meant to warm our blood this way.

Already warm, it boils away!

So those who must endure, endure.

They guard against the temperature.

They wear their armor: sunscreen, hat,

Protect their eyes with glasses, that

Obscure the rays and brilliant brights:

By seeing less, protecting sight.

But when the sun is unrelenting,

Air so humid, there’s no venting,

When no water satiates,

But from the hose evaporates,

What hope have we–by summer dazed,

Our every mortal thought, erased,

With all congealed, a sticky sphere?

We utter: “Get me out of here!”

Much like those toffs, to India sent,

By Queen Victoria’s Parliament,

Who, wearing collars, starched and white,

Succumbed to a mosquito’s bite:

So, too, we hold a handkerchief,

Which still contains a saline whiff,

And raise it up, and wave “Surrender!”

Not waiting, till the bitter end, 

To cry out “Mercy!”– to get past

This tortured trial– to escape, at last,

And to bask, in air-conditioned blast.

Our pride, now vanquished,

Thirst, now quenched,

But nights, hallucination-drenched.

For my homage to gardeners who show such endurance, see Garden come Summer. For an ode to a favorite summer insect, read Cicadas. For a Ukraine-inspired poem about the destruction of Mariupol, read Summer Playground. For a short-short fiction piece about a monastery garden, read Deadly Sins.