Some bee to love

Tags

art, Bees, drawings, Hylaeus hyalinatus, insect artwork, insects, Lithurgus chrysurus

Hylaeus hyalinatus and Lithurgus chrysurus (both species were introduced from Eurasia to the US)

Random bee doodles for Friday, woo!

Poem war

Tags

Autochthon, Bees, Charles Roberts, Lithurgus chrysurus, nature, nest searching, poems, poetry war, Quatrains, Rumi

I recently engaged in a battle of poetry with a friend of mine.  I have found an invasive bee in my area (named Lithurgus chrysurus, it is a pest because it bores through wood) and when I informed him, he insisted that I should find a nest.  I told him that the research farm where I work is 250 acres (101 hectares) and has hundreds of barns.  Also, I have my own experiment running this summer and don’t have the time to chase bees all summer.

He wrote back:

For years, copying other people,
I tried to know myself.
From within, I couldn’t decide what to do.
Unable to see, I heard my name being called.
Then I walked outside.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
-Rumi

p.s…..there can’t really be “hundreds” of barns….

To which, I responded:

While I share your interest in Lithurgus
And finding a nest sounds fabulous
With such a big farm
I fear the harm
This chase would impart on my thesis.

And he quipped back:

The thesis is an ephemeral beast
That should not be worried about in the least
Lithurgus has a fondness for lumber
Destroying all while you but slumber!

A clever Lass would craft her thesis
Upon the grinding of this bee to feces
Tis but the nobler thing to do
Nothing but a moment or two

After which, I submitted.  How can I withstand such clever rhyme?  Let’s add nest searching to my docket of things to do this summer.  He was happy, though.  He wrote:

I am the strife that shapes
The stature of man,
The pang no hero escapes,
The blessing, the ban;
I am the hammer that moulds
The iron of our race,
The omen of God in our blood that a people beholds,
The foreknowledge veiled in our face.
- Charles Roberts, Autochthon