Peter "Just Loves Flying"

Autumn Butterfly
Pablo Neruda

The butterfly dances
and burns – with the sun – sometimes,

flits and flies flaring in a swirl,
now still,
on a leaf that rocks it.

They said, “You have nothing.
Not this sickness. You persist.”

I said nothing either.
And it is past the hour of the harvest.

Today a hand of anguish
filled the autumn sky.
And into my soul the fall leaves pushed.

They said, “You have nothing.
Not this sickness. You persist.”

It was the hour of the scythe.
The sun, now,
convalesced.

Everything leaves this life, my friends.
It leaves or perishes.

It leaves the hand that beckons.
It leaves or perishes.

It leaves the rose you loosen.
And the mouth that gives you a kiss.

Water, shadow and vase.
It leaves or perishes.

It is past the hour of the scythe.
The sun, now, convalesced.

Its warm tongue enveloped me.

The Sweet Sound Of Bees
by T.E. Ballard

Could you love a bee
that buzzed, tickled your ear,
brought tiny legs up to lips,
while amber honey dripped
down your breast?
And if he followed it there
carried it down
to the place where you open
like flowers, clear petals. If wings
grew tongues, and he said
you were enough
the very essence of you
that he could live, grow
in the sweet sugar of your hip.

Would you then turn and walk away?
Say he is not a man with legs,
speak of spiders or ants
who would deny you both a place.
What if these were not reasons
just something you said,
for the hum had grown so sweet,
you realized an ability to sting.

🐝