Or: Being Born a Bee

Stuck in a rut,
Where once ox driven carts
Rattled into the city,
Guided on inverted rails,
Narrow ditches to hold the wheels,
To jar the teeth,
Turning, made difficult.
Making any change
Traumatic,
Only to crash down again,
Direction contingent upon the
Next fixed cut.

No thinking outside the box,
Got it?

In these times of
Too much information,
I wonder,
Does the mind seek out
Its own parameters,
Its own narrow confines?
Have we become
All the easier entrenched,
Happy in our industrialized habits,
Fated to bump up against our deepest fears,
Our own unyielding expectations?

The path of least resistance
Resisting deviation,
Unless, of course, we’re taken by surprise.
Led on, it seems,
Drone-like in our obedience.
The inevitable loss of stinger
And subsequent demise
Considered to be
Of little or no real consequence
To anyone.

We play our leisure games,
War-like, our gladiatorial avatars,
Giving us the illusion of power.
We buzz in our city streets,
Our schools, our stores,
Our homes, and churches.
We swarm around
Armed and dangerous,
Humming in our high-rise bee-hives,
Content in our busy-work,
Longing for the milk and honey,
The promise of something more,
Something waiting at the end of this
Socially-appropriate,
Law-enforced,
Money-driven,
Politically-motivated,
Follow the leader,
Make-believe,
Worker-bee life.

This, the truth of the matter:
The way of the hive:
To live - to serve;
The lines that guide.

Heads down and shoulders to the wheel,
Paranoia a symptom,
Claustrophobia, a sickness to be healed.
We must not fight this, our collective destiny.

And you say. “rut” as if it were a bad thing!




Michael S. True
12-9-13