Bees offer honey far more readily than they sting,

You say as we watch

Their fuzzy bodies flit from flower to flower

In the same clover.

_Trifolium repens._

They’re not native though nothing in our yard is.

The bees don’t care,

The same way we extend our soft skinned arms

Through the blackberry thickets

With the juice of our labors to show,

When we come back out.

I get older, my ski...

The air could have crackled, it felt like a fire ripping through the air. Beyond the limestone walls, pocked with sun-bleached mosses, that guarded our suburb like a fortress, the asphalt glimmered and waved. One wished to wave back, only as a meager offering in case this might put the fire out. The summers could never be so kind....