The Bee Burial

On that day you kissed my mouth, a warm grape-water kiss
and we made camp under a violet sky
drinking red wine and searching the yard for faerie rings
and buried treasure, catching glimpses of beetles and shy slugs
and at least three pixies, before we found him:
a dead bumblebee
lying face-up, nestled amid a grassy forest
tiny legs folded in dignity over his body.

Perhaps the spiders and the earthworms had mourned him already,
but we still cried for him, and let the spring breeze kiss the dew
away from our cheeks.

We gave him a soldier's burial,
a single blade of grass laid across his chest like a sword,
with dandelions and buttercups wreathed around his shallow grave.
And we sang buzzing songs, pollen songs,
and we hummed as we knelt in the dirt, and we vowed
that he would not be forgotten.

On that day we were solemn and enchanted
with magic on our mud-stained hands, and gold dust
in our hair and eyelashes.
Time hung honey-thick in the air until we took a break for strawberries
and realized half a day had passed, and we were halfway closer
to some ordinary tomorrow,
and our reverie was slowly beginning to fade
like swimming back to the surface of wakefulness
after a long dream.

So we waited as long as we could,
lingering outside while a hazy twilight settled,
memorizing the burial songs we'd written, and letting our love story
spill wine-red onto the blanket we brought.

And even years later, sometimes the hum
of a honeybee's wings in the morning
still sounds like a resurrection.