Swarm Theory Poem by Suzanne Hayasaki

Ever ask a bee who his God is?
If you did, he would say “We are.”
Ever ask him, “Yes, but who is in charge? ”
“Do you have a king? ”
“No, we have no need of one.”
“Do you have a queen? ”
“Yes, but she is busy giving birth! ”

“Do you have a keeper? ”
“Yes, but what has he to do with us? ”
“He is the maker of the box.”
“He is the taker of our honey.”
“We co-exist; we co-depend; we are symbiotic.”

“Then who leads you? ”
“Why, we do, of course.”
You see, bees know how to scatter and gather, scatter and gather.
In this expanding and contracting, they find the perfect form.
The universe is the same.
It expands like a rubber band only to contract into a black hole to ignite a new big bang.

You need to learn to do this with your mind.
Absolutely let go.
Let your thoughts, your every desire, your every question go free.
Send them out into the universe as if you were releasing homing pigeons.
They will swirl and circle and take off on the four winds.
And they will return.
With messages.

Let yourself, your soul, your atman scatter.
You have forced it into a form it cannot hold.
You have tried to define yourself.
How can you define the infinite, the chaotic, the expanding, the eternal?
Your capacity to define is finite, structured, boxed in, as short-lived as the brain these attempts congeal in.

Let go.
Accept chaos.
You are not the shepherd.
You are the bee keeper.
Allow your thoughts to buzz and dance and swarm and sting.
And you will reap the sweetest nectar of all.
The ecstasy of enlightenment.