Poolside Bee
Usually in December I go on a trip to DR that’s become part vacation and part memorial trip for lost family. Last year was no different and that usually means a poem stemming from grief on my way back. Things were a little different this time. I wanted to write something a little less focused on the more overwhelming feelings of grief, loss, etc. that I typically write when I come back and instead make this poem about a smaller experience that still had some of those themes. It also took a little longer because December is already a rough month for me but then I got sick in the last few days of it on top of everything and that pushed this into being the first poem of the new year.
Poolside Bee
By: A.X. Bueno
You jumped into the pool without a second thought
New bee in the pool
Trying hard to swim and flap those wings
What did you think would be waiting for you in here
Did you expect honey or sweets that made the risk worth the hypothetical reward
Or was it just impulse that propelled you this way forward
I'd consider instinct but for a bee to jump into the pool ignores the instinct to stay alive
For if you'd have stayed away from the water
Flew somewhere else you might have survived
Like by some sweet drink or through the air
But instead you're in the water in front of me and I can't help but care
Interrupting my swim like plenty of bugs before
A few alive like you barely are and most not like your future fate
I grab a plastic cup meant for the trash
You're not the first bug I've felt I could scoop on up
And take on out of here to make this pool a bit more clean
A task I'm pretty sure is futile
I'm no pool cleaner and so much fell and keeps falling in
But I figured I could help clean a little but the bee doesn't last
Too much water and too many tiny waves kept dragging it under but it still floats the same
I expected as much from something so small against a pool this size
But that doesn't help me or this bee that I knew couldn't be saved
So I use my plastic cup to try and pick it up again and again
Till I succeed in getting it in to escort to a place less watery for its' grave