The Tithonia Queen

Bees

Constant and persistent, small wings charged by summer sun warm and soft like youth buzz by strafing red orange inflorescence

Coming and going, they pass by in unknown quantities

Bound by purpose

Single of mind

The hive

~~~

Shoulder tall by summer’s end

Her near-crimson flowers in contrast with an early September sky of pale blue and thin streaked fish-bone skies; colder air coming in from the great prairies

She stands, arms outstretched to her kin…her children-by-proxy

A beacon to the bees

~~~

This time of year always makes me think of late summers  gone by, of annuals racing inevitably, fruit falling, and the sense of the days approaching; in early evening sunset air cools fast

Soon, the forests and hills and valleys and everywhere a tree should be standing becomes a living evolving kaleidoscopic theater to be a mirror into our souls cast back as joy-in-multicolor

And then first snow, second snow…

~~~

She places a bird bath, white and blue like an old roman artifact into a well shaded garden

It’s for the bees, she says

Bees need water, she says, wise by her days

Little did they know

It was she that grew the tithonia that fed their appetite and she who cured their thirst with a small Roman-like would be bird bath

It was she, a mother of both, each the others kin,  each the others need

The bee

The plant

And the Tithonia Queen

WJM

https://substack.com/@williamjmullen