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A Goodbye to Bees, Light Coming Through Leaves


by Darryl Price


Try to understand. There were and are good 
and bad dragons. Some are friendly, but there
were also really big beasts. You didn't 
want to end up standing on the wrong side 
of a fiery belch. Try to understand. 
The barefoot woman standing in the grass 
just outside of her garden was made more 
lovely by the sun, perfect for any 
kinds of wind to come. Her hair was waving 
like a patriotic flag, calling you 
to enlist your heart into something more 
noble than bedtime. Like a grand slam to 
the side of your head. Yet the bees barely 
noticed. Birds typed any words you felt, high 
above your head, in a balloon, going
higher than the clouds, with their sing-song beaks

on full tattletale mode, through throttle and 
display. Try to understand. We were a 
bunch of very small boys. We had never
thought more deeply about what we were on 
about than by skinny invitation 
alone. Only the adventure itself 
ever took us further away from now. 
Down the stairs. Down the road. Suddenly we 
were barely holding on to everything 
for dear life. Try to understand our mad 
frustration. This was something inside us
and brand new. And it hurt in ways no capped 
toy pistol could even hope to protect 
us from seeing in our wildest dreams. Bees 
elbowed their way past our frozen stampede 
like we were made of flimsy daisy chains.
So try to understand. We were watching 
oil paintings come to life. We were budding 
into becoming first time lovers. Our  

hands, our faces, we thought were for our eyes 
only, for each of us to actually 
see and hold to the light through leaves. Bees buzzed  
everyone's heads like halos. The barefoot 
lady moved into a beautiful old  
house, we were told, and stayed there behind its  
white windows forever. We were young and 
certainly imperfect dreamers breathing 
summer's air together. We smelled cookies. 
Is this the mysterious place where we 
made a childhood secret pact to always 
appreciate said bees until the end 
of all our times? The heart breaks. It's a lost 
crime mostly, sometimes. No one claims to have 
seen or heard anything else about her. 
The heart always breaks. No one understands
how anything magical has ever 
happened before their own today. Or that 
no one comes tumbling back into rear view. 
Our smooth hands age. Our rough faces soften. 
Our special bees disappear. I got on 
my paper tiger train and rode him straight 
out of town fast as I could. What else was 
I going to do? Now he's my only 
friend left in a slightly bee-less world.  And 
mighty good company it is, at that. 
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