What The Bee Said(For Lyn) Poem by Dónall Dempsey

A bumble bee
larger than ever

imagination could allow him

decides to attend
early morning mass

appears
out of nowhere

as if it had been
created just that second

by the Lord
God Almighty

imprisoned forever in
the stained glass

the frozen rituals
of the Mass.

And as the Holy Sacrament
is raised to Heaven above

(& inconsequential bread becomes
the trans-substantial flesh & blood)

the larger than life
bee

prays obsessively
droning out the priest’s voice

translating the sacred words

(so it seemed)
into bee
simultaneously.

I, now: listening
as a bee would

enraptured
captured

by this new(to me) language
of the bee.

The Gospel of the Bee?
“Just be! ”

The bee
a Biblical prophet

arguing fiercely & ferociously
with the human words

& our own
concept of God.

My soul stained
with the honeyed light

enthralling both
the windows & I.

As if to show us
that the here & now
is
Heaven

the bee climbs
inside the chalice

of an altar
Flower

& that God
is nothing more

than the parable
of this sunlight

the beauty of this
flower

held tenderly
in Time

& that Love
is what you

create
in your mind.


I bow my head
(take to heart)

what I’ve been
shown

the moment

made Holy

I worshiping

what I have always
known


believing in all

that the bee said.