Dear Reader,
Once again, I find myself drawn to the honeyed threads of Jamie Millard’s latest post – woven with rhythm, luminous with meaning. His poem, The Sound of Bees, hums with the ineffable for me, exploring space as both presence and absence, the silent breath where words and worlds meet.
"An absence of form. A matter of presence. An essence between the worlds. Between the words."
These lines by Jamie resonate deeply and had me reaching for poetry’s pen within moments, mirroring my own journey into pollen and ink. Hugely inspired, I offer this poetic reply – carried on the hum of words taking flight and the waggle dance of time. Come, meet the Poet as Bee.
Pollen and Ink
Beneath the star-strewn sky, the poet stands, wrapped in a hooded cloak spun from shadow and light. Planets shimmer overhead, spilling radiance across the heavens, their orbits tracing unseen paths in the vastness of night.
At the edges of the universe, the sound of bees drifts, gold-threaded messengers weaving between words and worlds. Their wings hum softly, stirring the poet deeply. Amber swirls, pollen-specked words spiral through the hush.
Barefoot, the poet listens. Not keeper, but bee - drawn to the silent pull of a song waiting to be found. No longer tending the hive, the poet becomes the hum itself – a rhythm in flight, following quiet patterns, carried upon the wind.
Her cloak stirs. Dust from forgotten galaxies scatters, threading poetry into the folds of hood and cloak. She traces her palm along its feather-soft edges, feeling what has landed and lingers there – unwritten, waiting.
Memory hums beneath her fingertips – not just hers, but the universe’s, with its stories pressing deep into her skin, mapping constellations, waiting to be read. The scent of parchment and honey thickens the air as she closes her eyes.
In the silence, the bees swarm around her. Like pollen drifting across the page, words settle – becoming root, stem, flower, verse. Ink rises, warm and steady, pressing against the waiting pen, ready to take flight.
As if summoned by the wings themselves, she remembers her name – Deborah, meaning ‘bee.’ Not suddenly, but wholly. She reaches for poetry’s pen, drawn to the hum and timeless stardust – the sound and sight of home.
Wings flicker, a whisper stirs between breath and stars. Ink spills forward – thick like honey, slow as sunlight warmed by time. It does not fall, it glides – stretching toward the waiting page, drawn not by her hand but by something older than time.
She is not writing. She is being written – woven between silence and sound, flight and gravity. There, and only there, a poem is born – spilled like nectar, golden and whole, into the reader’s waiting palms.
Yours in words, Deborah
If my words strike a chord and you feel inspired to dive deeper into my poetry or explore my essays on Jungian thought, I invite you to visit: The Liberated Sheep
Glorious, my bee friend! When I visited my son in North Carolina about a decade ago, I sat outside his four hives and listened to the coming and going of bees as they made bee poetry. The most thrilling was when they swarmed in a nearby tree and he let them gently fall from the branch into a new hive box--everyone calm, including the bees.
This year in the New York Finger Lakes, it rains and rains and rains. It feels like a comment on politics. We're drowning!! Bees are scarce, but I have Bluebirds in a nesting box outside my office window. I hope their parents were able to keep them dry in last night's pouring rain. In dry weather, they come and go from the nesting box in graceful Bluebird ballet.
I hope to hear the bees again soon, but neither the bees nor I love this cold wet weather. I wonder how they survive with so few flowers and so little pollen. How can they write their honeyed words in this weather?
In childhood we called them humble bees, solitary, early and attentive, mindful for a home to begin again... Memory and celestial navigation integrate time, sky patterns subtly shift across the day. (Truly. I learned of what earnest science terms e-vectors when I first started my substack. Smile.)