Conceptions of Dandelions by Seth McBride
October Bumblebee
by Seth McBride
The autumn chill rendered you immobile and you were wiping the sticky residual pollen from
your brow. You could’ve been waving me to draw closer for a whisper. I gingerly rubbed the prickly
yellow furs between your fluttering shoulder blades. I apologize if I offended you or disturbed your
cleansing, but it seemed as though you may be attempting to wipe tears from your eyes that you
could never quite reach. Winter is coming and the queen you’ve served all summer is bedded in her
solitude beneath a scaled plank of tree bark. You seemed to enjoy the warm caress of my index,
shifting your wings with a guttural buzz. I thanked you for your presence, for sustaining the animal
and vegetal world with the generative force carried upon your back. I felt that you should’ve holed
up within some tree your kind aided in producing, but winter’s coming and you don’t know what to
do but surrender.
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