‘Bees Are Spectacular’ and Other Poetry by Leo Zoutewelle

Bees Are Spectacular

When people talk of “bees” it well could mean
Two things: the sum of separate insects or
A colony—some workers and a queen—
A score of several thousand bees or more.

In some important ways they are the same:
Each single bee acts like its colony;
The colony fulfills each single aim
In pattern, preference and prosody.

First off, note well, a strange and puzzling fact:
The bee is basally mysterious.
Its faculties in truth divinely packed—
Spectacular, and always serious.

A bee can mark a course like any plotter,
As much as three miles on a single forage.
While seeking pollen, nectar, also water;
They use a hexagonal comb for storage.

Bees are, as golden cooks of eminence,
Producing royal jelly, lovely honey.
As nurses they do work of excellence
In raising larvae, flying when it’s sunny.

Bees’ greatest attribute, perhaps, depends:
They can be sociable if treated well.
They learn to recognize those who are friends,
Then they will let you visit where they dwell.

That is to say, I think that bees have senses,
While “instinct” is a term used by the timid—
The ones who keep their thoughts behind defenses—
But bees have thoughts and use them to the limit.

The big point to be made though is the fact
That bees are needed to cross-pollinate
Our crops, to keep our food supply intact
So that our meal intake be adequate.

This is so meant to be a clarion call
That bees are just essential for us all.

Autumn in the Village

The wind blew skittish raindrops in a flurry
Pretending it was summoned to somewhere;
The house wren shook its coat to look all furry:
A winter’s chill was entering the air.

The flowers were no longer fresh and pretty;
The street musicians all were getting old.
The barbers’ chitchats were no longer witty,
The cluttered vacant lot at last was sold.

By now, the solemn silence grew in measure;
The local swimming pool was closed and locked.
The sassy squirrels ran around with leisure,
While knowing that their food supply was stocked.

But then the clouds amassed in dark’ning grey
And rudely chased the light of day away.

Old Men

Old men can sit and grimly stare ahead
While they recall the zenith of their youth:
When they were spotless, pure and very glad
To get acquainted with some new-found truth.

And so, one man did recollect with joy
That his epiphany of bliss at twelve
Was having beat the champion marbles boy,
Which was, back then, a wondrous ego salve.

But wait, this crafty kind of recall hurts:
When it takes hold there is nowhere to hide;
Regrets take over, aye; they come in spurts
And melancholy’s maw is opened wide…

So now I know what kind of grief they bear
When old men simply sit and grimly stare.

Leo Zoutewelle was born in 1935 in The Netherlands and was raised there until at age twenty he emigrated to the United States.  After retiring in 2012  he has written an autobiography and two novels (unpublished).