Here and now is as everlasting
as we can know, inhabit it,
don’t postpone until tomorrow
which doesn’t exist, nor let
the past devour the present;
to forage with the bees
doesn’t guarantee
that there will be honey for tea
but a flower raid is at least,
exhilarating, like the evanescent
verve of shared laughter
in the shade of an orange tree.

Ride the wave of a passing breeze
like airy-fairy butterflies
whose paper-thin transitory lives
are death-defying. No net
catches up with their flights,
passing the bumble bee
whose lumbering seems
like one of those World-War-Two crates
delivering food, dropping flyers
or bombs on already ruined cities—
no, better a bee
at the bottom of this garden.