It’s the latest craze of the illuminati,
alluring activity, chance romance.
Re-costumed and re-armored
from a quiver of new necessaries:
beesuits, smokes, sticks, andvapors.
Seduced by bees,
buzzing and busy as scrambled thoughts
ricochetingin a lantern jaror circling madly
like black-and-pink-shirted urchins
who stand dumbstruck in bright pink socks
then cluster in playing fields
and merge into a frenzied swarm.
Bee-costumed at Mardi Gras,
big-eyed masks with stingers.
Bee savants––politically correct saviors
of endangered Hymenoptera,re-coddled killers,
recovering from colony collapse
and random ravages.
Guiding the good
like honeyguides promising encores,
leading followersto sumptuous repasts.
Honeyguide, honeyguide, guide me home
the sheep’s in the meadow, the goat’s in the loam
the kale’s in the garden,the berriesare down
the honey, the honey, the honey’s been found.
Laura Celise Lippman’s work has appeared in Avatar Review, Brief Wilderness, The Broken Plate, Chained Muse, Crack the Spine, Crosswinds, El Portal, Evening Street Review, Flights, Hey I’m Alive Magazine, La Presa, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Perceptions Magazine, Plainsongs, Pontoon Poetry, Poydras Review, Journal of Family Practice, The Meadow, Neologism Poetry Journal, New English Review, Sin Fronteras/Writers Without Borders, Spotlong Review, andSynkroniciti. She is a co-author of the book Writing While Masked Reflections of 2020 and Beyond. She attended Bryn Mawr College and received her M.D. from the Medical College of Pennsylvania. She practiced medicine for thirty-seven years and raised two children in the Pacific Northwest. Since retirement, she continues to take poetry courses at Hugo House in Seattle. She enjoys the outdoors and sharing her wonder at the natural world.