Carpenter bees browse among the azaleas
Here and there a butterfly
But none of the beloved honey bees
Their numbers tragically diminished

The carpenter bees drill holes in our porches
No use-value no luscious honey
Their bodies plump and ungainly
But they have their beauty too

See one plunge deep into the petals
Wagging its rotund posterior
Hind legs swollen with the whitish pollen
Treasure for the tribe

And like every living thing
How apt how elegant
How far different from that of human contrivance
Which must please if it please the mind

How beautiful is one bristling black or yellow hair
It can’t be seen except in aggregate
Or with the supplement of optical apparatus
All in nature each is all

And nature not ideally efficient
The vestigial organs
The imperfect births
And yet for all this nature ever strives

The black beauty grinds it out
Petal by patient petal
Grain by grateful grain
Animal and plant in mutual striving

How beautiful is Oedipus’
Raking the broach across his eyes
This too requires aggregation
The drama does not begin with catastrophe

Before must come anagnorisis
Without which the self-mutilation
Is mere atrocity
But with which is the possibility of decorum

Not perfect efficiency
But wondrous decorum
As the bee’s round rump
Matches its humdrum task

And the bee fits in beautifully
With flower and sky
And river and field and ocean
And the richness of out-of-reach stars

You can see it at a glance
Not so the tragic hero
Who must guide us through the journey
From ignorance to knowledge which is sorrow

We must participate or there’s no play
Audience must take the arduous journey
While nature fits its puzzle pieces
With miraculous facility

But what matter if beauty be
Arduous or immediate
We see the striving of the setting sun
Of the hero and the carpenter

We see what remains and what departed
The king’s untempered pride
The soft flower’s embrace
The absence of the honey bee