From a Diary of the Plague Year (7)

I went outside in the dark just
to be out. A warm western wind
tricked me into thinking,
Everything's going to be all right.
It's good to fall for that intuitive
prank sometimes. Softens
the fatalism. I looked out at

cheap solar lights I'd placed
on the perennially flowered
slope, a private bee resort
in summer. Bees, I thought,
if only bees would show up.

I went back inside to shelter
in place, a phrase of our moment.
I held a good thought (useless,
I know) for people forced
to shelter out of place.


hans ostrom 2020

The Bees Are Baking

Bees inside my head wear gold aprons
because they're baking tiny tan cookies.
Of course they buzz.  It's how they talk.
They're speaking of their relationship
to time, of how they've been bees
again and again through the ages.

I ask them a question.  Horrified,
they vanish, leaving only the pollen
of their buzzing.  Oh, well.  Their
little bee kitchen smells warm.
I put all of their cookies, which taste
of you-guessed-it, on my tongue at
once because I'm suddenly quite hungry.


hans ostrom 2017

Honeybees and Glass

Poems are composed on glass
that only seems to be translucent
beyond which airborne honeybees
meander in a No-Time without
language. Some poems pretend
to see the honeybees.



hans ostrom 2016

Secret Music

The antennae of the snail receive
music as slowly as glaciers form thoughts.
Note by note, the music seeps in from
a station under the ocean.

--Whereas bumble bees jam. They
syncopate the wing-buzz rhythms
and growl lyrics into stamens.
O, sexy women, O, befuddled men,

there's music out there
few have never heard.



hans ostrom 2015

Spring, Again

(image: bee, laden with pollen)








Spring, Again

Assuming the blooming occurs again,
I'll wheeze when pollen's fallen and seize
sight of bees, the hardest working nectar-
miners in show business. Spring's that thing,
that dated zing of warmth correlated to
a meaningful swing in globular orbit. Spring
sings Winter's obit. Yes, yes, bursting buds,
returning birds, etc. Renewal, Inc., roars
into town again, down again by the river,
a regular revival of survival-impulse
(hang on to your wallet). Call it
what you will, Spring's one shrewd
season, more instinct than reason,
a shout of regenerative clout. Come
on in, my big-blossomed baby. We've
been waiting for you, oh-so-long.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Sixty Bees of Separation

Sixty Bees of Separation


The man misheard me and believed
I'd said "sixty bees of separation"
instead of "six degrees . . ." and he
wanted to know "what the hell"
I was talking about--what did I
mean by sixty bees of separation?

I went with a mondegreenish
improvisation and said that
according to a South American
legend, sixty bees once got
separated from a magical hive
in the Amazon Basin. Ever since
then, the bees have been
circling the globe, searching
in vain for their indigenous nest.

I said according to the myth,
if all sixty bees locate the hive
and end the separation,
the waters of the Amazon
will turn to honey. "Oh,"
said the man, "it's just some
legend, then." "Yes," I said.
"It is the Legend of the Sixty
Bees of Separation."


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom