One hand on throat
One hand on heart
Deep breath in. Long hum out.
Humming the bees back
Our voices send the thrum of humming
out to the Pacific beach
In Chacala, Mexico, where the bees die at
the edge of wave and sand.
One lone bee hears the humming,
Feels the vibration in its amber body
striped in black, half buried in sand crystals
Humming the bees back
Our hands feel the trembling of vocal chords,
The beat of our hearts.
The bee the size of my thumbnail
kicks its back legs, weak and still alive.
Translucent wings held outwards
show fine black lines
like cracks in window panes.
Stir little bee. Rise little bee.
The wings lie still, the feet go quiet
A wave rolls in, the bee is gone
and still we hum
and the humming grows
until the tree leaves hum
the grackles hum,
the fishermen hum,
the children splashing in waves hum.
The frigate birds skate the hum
across the sky until the humming
becomes visible cracks in
a broken window.
The sky cracks open wide
and the humming bursts through
and a kingfisher flies into
the sky hole with a chatter hum.
The whole world inhales.
Holds one hand on throat
One hand on heart.
All is still.
The humming is held breath.
The bees that are dying struggle to lift their
heavy feet from sandy death beds.
Then it happens.
The grackles squawk it
The pelicans open their bucket beaks
The trees gather up every leaf
in readiness.
The kingfisher slices back down through
the crack in the sky and the
bees stream in, rivers of rivers of
bees like a living, humming tail.
Bees of every size, 20,000 species
and their humming releases the
held breath in the world and
our humming becomes the healing chant.
The lone bee washed out to sea
flies up from a wave on glass pane
wings that are not cracked, but are
patterned with language.
The kingfisher lands on her perch
Ruffles her feathers, shakes her crested head,
Flicks her stubby tail,
and rests.
Humming becomes lullaby
carried on waves
carried by tides
carried by moon, by sun and by wind.
A great gentleness descends upon this
broken earth, waiting for flowers
to again bloom not on her grave
but on her dancing feet
that undulate like millions
and millions
of returning bees.
Humming the bees back
--by Marina Richie
Chacala, Mexico, February, 2019
