{"id":533,"date":"2014-03-30T15:00:08","date_gmt":"2014-03-30T06:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/persimmon-dreams.com\/blog\/?p=533"},"modified":"2014-03-31T07:52:31","modified_gmt":"2014-03-30T22:52:31","slug":"for-a-week-or-so-the-bee-sucks-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/persimmon-dreams.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/30\/for-a-week-or-so-the-bee-sucks-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Yes, the bee sucks here"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"140329_daffodil_290\"<\/a>March 29th. Along the Mariko River. A bit of (American) football in the park across the way. Delicious ginger tea and hijiki<\/em> salad. Nice folks. A good bicycle ride.<\/p>\n

\"140329_sakura1b_400\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Yes, here, along this riverbank,<\/p>\n

Is where the bee sucks.<\/p>\n

But I cannot slip into the cowslip’s bell,<\/p>\n

Cannot balance on the petal of the yellow na-no-hana<\/em>,<\/p>\n

Cannot zoom down\u00a0among the daffodils,<\/p>\n

Cannot hover before the hearth,<\/p>\n

Cannot reap from the rich, gold-studded anther.<\/p>\n

\"140329_daffodils_three_400\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is not diminished desire.<\/p>\n

When the little girl says,<\/p>\n

“Mama, mama, stars, stars!<\/p>\n

Fried-egg stars are in the flowers!”–<\/p>\n

I desire nothing less than to rip off my shirt, scoop up the whole lot,<\/p>\n

Press the yolks and whites and greens and dirty roots<\/p>\n

Right through my skin. . . . And I want<\/p>\n

To zip up into the air, pierce the warm breeze, out-bee the bee–<\/p>\n

I want to streak down the walkway, just beneath the low-hanging, silvery\u00a0limbs,<\/p>\n

Down to where the young mother stands,<\/p>\n

Smiling, leaning on a baby stroller,<\/p>\n

I want to master intricate flight, out-bee a thousand bees,<\/p>\n

I want to orbit, magic incarnate,\u00a0her head, her heart, her flesh,<\/p>\n

I want to alight on her cheek, make her flesh tingle,<\/p>\n

I want the tingle to scream,<\/p>\n

Like fine print through an enormous looking-glass,<\/p>\n

“Yes! Yes! Yes!”<\/p>\n

\"140329_pink_flowers_290\"<\/a>\u00a0\"140329_sakura3_290\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But zip<\/em>?<\/p>\n

What talk is that?<\/p>\n

I cannot even float<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But if I could<\/em> float,<\/p>\n

If I could do just that much and nothing more,<\/p>\n

If I could do nothing more than ride the breeze,<\/p>\n

Well, yes, in that case, I guess I’d be content<\/p>\n

To wander off as lonely as a cloud.<\/p>\n

But I cannot. I cannot even float. Can you?<\/p>\n

\"140329_sakura2_buds_400\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Yes, for a week or so, the bee sucks here.<\/p>\n

Along this riverside, along this strip of cherry trees.<\/p>\n

Can you imagine what he sees?<\/p>\n

First the heavenly sea of red buds,<\/p>\n

Then the coy cheeks emerging, the delicate white flesh, the lingering pink,<\/p>\n

A soft, soft pink not trying very hard<\/p>\n

To mask an aching, vibrant passion–invisible<\/p>\n

Only to the most foolish of fools–<\/p>\n

A heavenly sea of delicate cheeks, all wanting, surely, probably (don’t you think?), to be kissed.<\/p>\n

Is it any wonder how easily the bee’s wings lift him?<\/p>\n

How frenetically he flies?<\/p>\n

\"140322_pampas_grass_600\"<\/a>No, I cannot indulge in the golden\u00a0nectar as the bee does.<\/p>\n

If I had to say, I’m more like the pampas grass,<\/p>\n

The pampas grass on the opposite bank,<\/p>\n

A survivor of the winter, still golden in the sun,<\/p>\n

Strong in the breeze, but no longer supple,<\/p>\n

Like an old man whose gotten himself upright,<\/p>\n

Stiff knees, stiff back and all,<\/p>\n

Determined, now, to stand, come what may,<\/p>\n

An old man–hair coarse, unruly, dull, clumpy,<\/p>\n

An old man wanting<\/p>\n

But unable to take even a step forward,<\/p>\n

Hollow, decaying–<\/p>\n

Who knows that even a dull scythe could effortlessly do him in,<\/p>\n

And\u00a0who knows\u00a0how the bee’s wings hum (“All those petals! all those golden gems!”),<\/p>\n

Over there, across the river–<\/p>\n

And yet stubbornly\u00a0determined, like Ahab,<\/p>\n

To be foreground to deep-blue sky,<\/p>\n

And desiring, if only just once–<\/p>\n

Desiring more than all the bees that have ever beaten wings–<\/p>\n

To reach out and touch one–just one!<\/em>–of those lovely cheeks.<\/p>\n

\"140329_sakura_bee_350\"<\/a>Yes, a single cheek will do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

March 29th. Along the Mariko River. A bit of (American) football in the park across the way. Delicious ginger tea and hijiki salad. Nice folks. A good bicycle ride. Yes, here, along this riverbank, Is where the bee sucks. But I cannot slip into the cowslip’s bell, Cannot balance on the petal of the yellow … Continue reading Yes, the bee sucks here<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/persimmon-dreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/persimmon-dreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/persimmon-dreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/persimmon-dreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/persimmon-dreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/persimmon-dreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":552,"href":"https:\/\/persimmon-dreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533\/revisions\/552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/persimmon-dreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/persimmon-dreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/persimmon-dreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}