Day 393: Bee Day

Today is National Honey Bee Awareness Day! So here is Carol Ann Duffy's beautiful benediction to bees (I've posted it before, but I think the occasion calls for it again!) And 'guard them' we must for they are the 'batteries of orchards, gardens,' of utmost importance.  

Read more on the importance of bees here: http://www.nationalhoneybeeday.com/whathoneybeesdo.html

Virgil's Bees - Carol Ann Duffy

Bless air's gift of sweetness, honey
from the bees, inspired by clover,
marigold, eucalyptus, thyme,
the hundred perfumes of the wind.
Bless the beekeeper

                             who chooses for her hives
a site near water, violet beds, no yew,
no echo. Let the light lilt, leak, green
or gold, pigment for queens,
and joy be inexplicable but there
in harmony of willowherb and stream,
of summer heat and breeze,
                                            each bee's body
at its brilliant flower, lover-stunned,
strumming on fragrance, smitten.

                                                  For this,
let gardens grow, where beelines end,
sighing in roses, saffron blooms, buddleia;
where bees pray on their knees, sing, praise
in pear trees, plum trees; bees
are the batteries of orchards, gardens, guard them.