Honeybee Innocence Remembered
by Odin Roark

The colony was prepared
for the thousands of fellow creatures
about to respectfully deposit their wealth,
their joyful survival.

The boy had trod on the simple life of gathering,
bringing about pain from the bee that meant no harm,
the creature merely reacting
as she gathered love for the colony,
ultimately giving her life to defend.

Now limping up the dandelion carpeted hill
the 5-year old’s foot throbbed with the sting’s pain,
unaware he was experiencing something more than pain,
a cherished lesson he would comprehend later.

A bee.

A boy.

A difficult understanding…for now.

How foreign this encounter remained.
The boy grew and a man emerged,
discovering stings of the heart and mind
far out-pained the innocent bee’s barbed defense.

In spite of the gathering years,
the encounter stayed with him,
as he carefully trod down the dusty road
of hidden IED threats,
where determining innocent human beings from hostiles
was a matter of living or dying.

That one honeybee,
that one entity that meant no harm,
remained the death that started a lesson,
the defensive sacrifice he dwelled on,
strangely maintaining that long ago stinging sensation
to the foot and leg he no longer had.

How simple the dandelion experience.
How complex the lesson.