At first, he seems afflicted by a skin disease, 
sporting big black blisters on his neck and 
shoulder. Then we see the wings. Bees 
congregate around his nipples, raised and 
regular as blossoms against his hairless chest. 
They shelter in the pale orbs of his ears. 
He shows no fear, trusting in their trust. 
They recognize his scent, though usually 
he’s kitted out in suit and gloves, a helmet, 
and underneath, his clothes, concealing 
all this vulnerable white skin. He sings 
to them, lulls them with his bee smoker, 
caring for the hive like one of their own. 
He knows not to raise a hand to brush away 
the tickling feet, accepts them as he does 
himself. He wishes he could live a life as 
simple as these bees, flying low over a field 
of blooming larkspur, covering themselves 
in grains of golden pollen, tending to the queen 
in her waxen cubicle. To be human is confusing. 
We seldom know the task we’re born for. 
He’s been told so often that pleasure must 
be hidden. He would rather be a bee. 

*Publisher’s Note:

A 1985 gelatin silver print of the iconic photograph by Richard Avedon (1923-2004)—Ronald Fischer, beekeeper, Davis, California, May 9, 1981—may be viewed at The Cleveland Museum of Art:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2005.143

See also “Unfazed by All the Buzz (The portrait that took the photographic world by swarm),” an article by science journalist Elizabeth Royte in Smithsonian Magazine: Arts & Culture (November 2002):
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/unfazed-by-all-the-buzz-71795169/

Links were retrieved on 24 December 2022.

Robbi Nester

lives and writes in Southern California, where she is a retired college educator and an elected member of the Academy of American Poets. She curates two poetry reading series and is the author of four published books of poetry, including an ekphrastic chapbook, Balance (White Violet, 2012), and three collections: Narrow Bridge (Main Street Rag, 2019), Other-Wise (Kelsay, 2017), and A Likely Story (Moon Tide, 2014). She has four more manuscripts awaiting publication.

Her poems, reviews, essays, and articles have appeared widely in journals and anthologies, including among others: Artemis; Book of Matches; Cultural Daily; Dear Vaccine: Global Voices Speak to the Pandemic (Kent State University Press, 2022); SMEOP (Hot) (Black Sunflowers Poetry Press, forthcoming); Live Encounters; MacQueen’s Quinterly; Mindfull; Naugatuck River Review; Rhino; One Art; The Journal of Radical Wonder; Tiferet; Valparaiso Poetry Journal; Verse-Virtual; and Zooanthology: About the Animals in Our Lives (Sweetycat Press, 2022).

Robbi has also edited three anthologies: The Liberal Media Made Me Do It! (Nine Toes, 2014); Over the Moon: Birds, Beasts, and Trees, which was published as a special issue of Poemeleon Journal; and The Plague Papers, recently published online at Poemeleon Journal.

Poet’s website: www.robbinester.net

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Dancing White Egret, ekphrastic poem by Robbi Nester after a photograph by Philippe Rouyer, in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 14, August 2022)

⚡ Three Poems by Robbi Nester in Verse-Virtual (January 2020)

⚡ Law of Attraction, ekphrastic poem after Van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhone, in Verse-Virtual (May 2019)

⚡ Night Tunnel, ekphrastic poem by Robbi Nester after a painting by Robert Rhodes, Philadelphia Night Train, in The Ekphrastic Review (21 April 2016)

⚡ The Locusts, ekphrastic poem after a collage of the same name by Mary Boxley Bullington, in The Ekphrastic Review (13 October 2015)