! Wild Bees, Lost Souls Poem by Michael Shepherd

The bees, this year,
have come before the swallows dare
and take the wings of April
inadvisedly;

ignoring the cloud of jasmine around the open door,
incurious, it seems, about the front garden’s offerings,
they swoop into the house,
take a left turn where the corridor gets darker,
and land up in the front room; where
they swoop again, then like lost souls
start for here and there, change flight-plan,
and end up nosing uselessly against the window
which doesn’t open; crawl a bit; and
surprisingly soon, fall down, on their backs,
legs folded in some final surrender
just enough like a human being, to chill…

I take the kitchen strainer
since it’s larger than a jam-jar, reaches further,
dab a touch of first-aid honey on the rim,
persuade them to settle on its promise,
and whisk them off to the front door,
tap them into freedom.

I thought that bees were focussed, busy, pretty bright,
with radar, iPods, mobile/ cell-phones all built in;
this year, they’re aimless as illegal immigrants
hoping to exist, but not to work..
surely even wild bees have a sense of home?
‘Go back where you came from…’ I yell at them
like some nationalist speaker at a rally…
there is now no Limbo for these lost souls, it seems;
bees, who through the centuries
were said to have close links to human souls…
it’s puzzling, disturbing, too close for comfort,
or for ignoring.