Tobacco, God, and Bees

I watch the bashful bees

Avoiding my eye,

And my camera.

I smoke one, then two cigarettes,

And try to pray.

I am rusty,

But to be honest,

I’ve never been much good at it.

The one-sided conversations,

Letters written in quiet moments

Sent, but never answered.

I wonder if I get the postage wrong.

Even a, “Not at this address,”

I would accept.

The flowers are pink,

And yellow in their centers,

With a smell so sweet

I can detect it even over

The smoke of my third cigarette.

I grind the ashes under my toe.

The bees are ebony and blond,

Tireless—

They climb headfirst

Into gentle blossoms,

They wade through soft

Wheat-fields of stamen,

And emerge heavy and gold with pollen,

Their stout legs eager,

The sound of their wings

Carrying across the quiet street.

I try again to pray,

But in the end,

I write this poem.

The air is warm and clear,

The breeze cool.

I am sick to my stomach

After the fourth cigarette.

I watch one bee replace another,

And there is no voice from the sky.

I wonder, vaguely,

If the quest for god

Is merely the quest

To seek divinity in oneself,

Then wonder if I am wrong,

Or how much it matters.

The mercy I am looking for

Is not that big, eternal one.

It is for now.

The sun is hot—

I move from shade to shade,

The smell of my breath

Acrid in my own nose.

The last puff of a cigarette

Is never as soothing as the first.

I grind a wasp under my toes,

And slowly, unsure of my feet,

I head back home.