Impermanence

Impermanence

The last small dregs of honey
have fallen from the jar
pooling, uncelebrated amber, in the sink.

Each honeybee makes one meager
twelfth of a teaspoon of honey
on her brief and humming days,
the sink now vessel for
the lifelong makings of an entire being.

Sometimes I wonder-
if it all, eventually hits the fan,
how I may think about these perfect things
that I passed over in my days.

The strawberry come to juicy ripeness
forgotten and then molding in the fridge,
or the orchids garnishing
my entree at the Asian place. So fuchsia,
fleeting, so entire,
and tossed away after our dinner.

Even the sun is burning out.
Inside me
another ovum swims away.
I do not want it when the lives of honeybees
are being lost, while another singular,
irreplaceable species of warbler
falls into twilight, into extinction. I think,

I am in love with that bird:

with all the fleet and perfect sweetness
of its final song on planet earth. I taste the honey

and I can tell for just one moment
everything about the bee
and her short life.

How she tangled in the pillowed pollens of
a wildflower.
How she slept.
How she danced a dance
about a fading sun. Just once-