Me or the Valley Carpenter Bee
by Bobbie Jo Allen
Mind awakens to the sudden sight of A before-unknown bright thing: it hovers,
the bee; it signified at once, beauteous— a(s) plump with pollen, bold againt the rosemary,
it shook off the fog of experience, shining shining primeval fuzz of a whole-body halo,
the color of warm honey: disappearance of sense into a creature immersed in its own loveliness; so
enters—so exits thought—becoming strange: green eyes gold wings gold body—
a new idiom; I identify with a gold strangeness—unalighting—
this first-seen thing—it transformes me, to/as a topaz foiled in rich green rosemary—
a heart-harmonic sounding (so silently)— a rare chance sighting—I am then
understanding I am not here in silence seeking small blue blossoms,
and in that the sense of disappearance in/to a beauty I can’t understand, bridging me into
the object only as bright as the sun - light only as bright as the object it strikes.