Tag: bees

Perspective

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IT makes no difference abroad,
The seasons fit the same,
The mornings blossom into noons,
And split their pods of flame.


Wild-flowers kindle in the woods,
The brooks brag all the day;
No blackbird bates his jargoning
For passing Calvary.


Auto-da-fé and judgment
Are nothing to the bee;
His separation from his rose
To him seems misery.

~Emily Dickinson

I had to look up “auto-da-fé,” and wow. Basically, it’s an allusion to the Inquisition. You can read a definition here.

That one word crystallizes the meaning of the poem. Dickinson is comparing the eternal cycles of nature to the most extreme that humanity has to offer–Calvary, the Inquisition–and concluding that really, none of that human stuff matters to nature. Our doings, which seem so momentous to us, are nothing to nature. Our beliefs, religions, dogmas, don’t matter beyond ourselves.

On one hand, it’s a terrifying thought–everything we get so riled up about doesn’t really matter in the end, or at least doesn’t matter beyond ourselves. On the other hand, it’s comforting–perhaps a little bit of much-needed perspective. The world will go on without us.

Purple clover

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THERE is a flower that bees prefer,
And butterflies desire;
To gain the purple democrat
The humming-birds aspire.


And whatsoever insect pass,
A honey bears away
Proportioned to his several dearth
And her capacity.


Her face is rounder than the moon,
And ruddier than the gown
Of orchis in the pasture,
Or rhododendron worn.


She doth not wait for June;
Before the world is green
Her sturdy little countenance
Against the wind is seen,


Contending with the grass,
Near kinsman to herself,
For privilege of sod and sun,
Sweet litigants for life.


And when the hills are full,
And newer fashions blow,
Doth not retract a single spice
For pang of jealousy.


Her public is the noon,
Her providence the sun,
Her progress by the bee proclaimed
In sovereign, swerveless tune.


The bravest of the host,
Surrendering the last,
Nor even of defeat aware
When cancelled by the frost.

~Emily Dickinson

Emily has a lot to say about purple clover. It’s a humble sort of flower, yet completely wonderful, too–often written off as a weed, but transmogrified into the sweetest honey.

White clover comes early here. Its blossoms carpet the lawn, providing some of the first nectar for pollinating insects. It’s small and low-growing, profuse, starring the green with tiny fireworks of pink-tinged white. The purple clover comes later. I just spotted some in the garden last week, and left it where it was. As gardeners go, I am probably a bit more whimsical than is strictly wise. There’s a wild poppy that reseeds itself year after year among the tomatoes and lettuce. I let it, and enjoy its random burst of color among the green.

The purple clover will stay in the garden at the edge of the bean patch. I will watch it for honeybees, maybe cut and dry some for herbal tea. It is a reminder that life is uncontrollable, persistent, and strangely sweet.

Who?

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BRING me the sunset in a cup,
Reckon the morning’s flagons up,
And say how many dew;
Tell me how far the morning leaps,
Tell me what time the weaver sleeps
Who spun the breadths of blue!


Write me how many notes there be
In the new robin’s ecstasy
Among astonished boughs;
How many trips the tortoise makes,
How many cups the bee partakes,—
The debauchee of dews!


Also, who laid the rainbow’s piers,
Also, who leads the docile spheres
By withes of supple blue?
Whose fingers string the stalactite,
Who counts the wampum of the night,
To see that none is due?


Who built this little Alban house
And shut the windows down so close
My spirit cannot see?
Who ’ll let me out some gala day,
With implements to fly away,
Passing pomposity?

~Emily dickinson

This is peak Dickinson. This is perhaps The Most Emily Poem of all time. For starters, it’s a riddle. Dickinson piles on question after question, never answering them. There’s also a lot of exclaiming and rapture about nature. She mentions robins. She mentions bees. She even describes bees as “debauchee of dews,” a phrase she uses in another poem, the better-known “I taste a liquor never brewed.”

There are lots of unanswerable questions, lots of breathless delightings in the glories of nature. There are oodles of gorgeous and quirky descriptions: “how many dew,” “astonished boughs,” “withes of supple blue,” and on and on. There’s an obscure references–what is an “Alban house”? Is she talking about Scotland? Why?? Or is she referencing the saint? Again, why?? And, of course, in true Dickinsonian fashion, the poem ends in death–with the promise of resurrection.

Bereaved acknowledgment

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I DREADED that first robin so,
But he is mastered now,
And I ’m accustomed to him grown,—
He hurts a little, though.


I thought if I could only live
Till that first shout got by,
Not all pianos in the woods
Had power to mangle me.


I dared not meet the daffodils,
For fear their yellow gown
Would pierce me with a fashion
So foreign to my own.


I wished the grass would hurry,
So when ’t was time to see,
He ’d be too tall, the tallest one
Could stretch to look at me.


I could not bear the bees should come,
I wished they ’d stay away
In those dim countries where they go:
What word had they for me?


They ’re here, though; not a creature failed,
No blossom stayed away
In gentle deference to me,
The Queen of Calvary.


Each one salutes me as he goes,
And I my childish plumes
Lift, in bereaved acknowledgment
Of their unthinking drums.

~emily dickinson

This is a strange one indeed. The speaker is talking about things that Dickinson typically gets excited about–robins, daffodils, bees–but instead of anticipating them, she tells us she has “dreaded” them. The robin “hurts a little,” the “pianos in the wood” can “mangle” her, the daffodils’ yellow can “pierce” her. If it’s aware of her needs, Nature ignores them, showing no deference to her feelings. She is the “Queen of Calvary”–the queen of suffering? The queen of salvation? What exactly does this mean?

Such a strange poem. The speaker describes the beauties of spring as torments and herself as “bereaved.” What is she grieving? Does the freshness and new life of spring remind her of something she can’t have, something she lost? Why does spring hurt?

There is something in these early days of spring–some underlying coldness on the sunniest days, some lingering frost–that reminds us that spring is not forever. Of all the beauties of the year, spring’s somehow seem the most fleeting, the most fragile. Blossoms are easily crushed, and bees may live for only weeks or days. Perhaps it’s this ephemerality that pains Dickinson–the knowledge that all this beauty, from the moment it bursts forth, is already passing into memory.

“Take care, for God is here. That’s all.”

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THE MURMUR of a bee
A witchcraft yieldeth me.
If any ask me why,
’T were easier to die
Than tell.


The red upon the hill
Taketh away my will;
If anybody sneer,
Take care, for God is here,
That ’s all.


The breaking of the day
Addeth to my degree;
If any ask me how,
Artist, who drew me so,
Must tell!

~Emily dickinson

Yesterday, an errant honeybee found her way into my kitchen. I caught her in a glass jar and set her free. I wonder where home is for her. Redbuds haze the wooded hillsides with their purple gauze, and dogwood buds have unfurled into white-green blossoms. The other morning, when I went out just before sunrise to let out the chickens, the Alleghenies to the west blazed momentarily red with the light of the dawning sun. Spring is full of such moments, fleeting and peerless. “Take care, for God is here. That’s all.”

It’s all I have to bring today

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It’s all I have to bring today—
This, and my heart beside—
This, and my heart, and all the fields—
And all the meadows wide—
Be sure you count—should I forget
Some one the sum could tell—
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.

Emily Dickinson

All I have to bring today is–everything. The dance lesson in an hour and fifteen minutes. The groceries I ordered because I have no time (or patience) to brave the plague-riddled folk in the store. The student emails that never end. The grading that has, quite frankly, become laughable. The three poems currently in edit mode in my head, and the two nonfiction essays waiting to be drafted. The partial rejection that arrived today after I sent off requested material thirteen months ago. The cold that is a slap in the face if you try to breathe outside. The daffodils I forgot to plant. The ponies holding court in the dining room floor. The broken sippy cups leaking in backpacks. Our department secretary, who has retired, and the empty office that needs filling. My coffee cup, which needs a spigot.

March, I barely know ye, and already I am weary.

With a Flower

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WHEN roses cease to bloom, dear,
And violets are done,
When bumble-bees in solemn flight
Have passed beyond the sun,

The hand that paused to gather
Upon this summer’s day
Will idle lie, in Auburn–
Then take my flower, pray!

Emily Dickinson

Both of my grandmothers were prolific gardeners, and so, apparently, was my great aunt Ruth. She died either the day before or after I was born–I’ve always loved that, and can never remember which is true–and my parents bought her house and we moved in when I was 2. She planted camellias absolutely everywhere, and they’re still there, bright hot pink lights in the winter.

My maternal grandmother, Maw-Maw, I remember more for her vegetable garden, but her blueberry bushes and peach trees are fresh in my mind (and in my tastebuds). My paternal grandmother, Grannie, had the most lovely red spider lilies outside her front window.

Maybe that’s why I don’t read this poem and immediately imagine it written to a lover. I think about the gardeners who lived before me, who planted things I still get to see, and I think about my daylilies in the front yard and the Felicia rose in the backyard that will, hopefully, live for a very long time. I hope that they’re still going after I’m gone.

When roses cease to bloom and bumblebees have flown beyond the sun–there must still be some flowers to gather, so I can’t think that Dickinson is imagining the end of the world. She’s still lying in repose, after all. Auburn, I’m supposing, is the city in Massachusetts, about an hour’s drive from Amherst. In typical Dickinson fashion, she’s telling us to take the flowers from her grave, I think. And I think my grandmothers would approve.