Nectar

When I first became a bee I was just so nectar naïve.
I tumbled over petals waving my antennae frantically.
Then, when I was living life as a flower and not a bee,
well, to back up: this is tragic: I didn’t identify as flower
when I was a flower or as bee when a bee, and when
at last I did at least proclaim myself flower or a bee—
(it wasn’t until I met you, love)—then I discovered
it wasn’t about being a flower or a bee, but everything
in life is really about the nectar. Anyway, when a bee
I was always buzzing around starving for something,
but I didn’t know I was starving, or—and let’s be
honest and repeat—even that I was even a bee at all.
I was just a yellow and black tumble-thumb buzzing
somewhere for buzzing’s sake from sunrise to sunset.
Then, you. I flew into your meadow, and right away
knew you as a flower, and that I was, in fact, a bee.
Insight! Did you know other bees (other than you)
are born not knowing how to sip nectar from flowers?
I didn’t. So at first I didn’t do anything but circle
you obnoxiously. Even if I had a clue about nectar
in this graveyard so many flowers are nectar-barren.
It’s bleak out there. I sometimes see a lonely bee—
there are few of us left—militantly marching across
a rim of petals, irritated as hell, and then scat off.
If you don’t know it’s not the flower but the nectar,
and you don’t have a guidebook on sipping nectar,
and if nectar is very rare, again, things are whacked.
I was always crashing back into the hive empty-handed.
Our Queen then melted down, gave up the starving hive,
and buzzed off forever. The hive was full of stupid drones.
I died in the hive soon after, and awoke a flower like you,
but on that lucky day you were living your best life as a bee,
and nuzzled all over my moist petals and drank my nectar.
I didn’t really know I was a flower, and still didn’t know
I had a sip of paradise to offer. But I saw in your large,
gentle, pixelated eyes how you delighted in my gold nectar.
I don’t think you understand what you have given me.
But then you turned into a flower, and I was a bee again,
and you didn’t believe your own nectar was delicious, and
I was aghast you didn’t know, and I pray now you know
the ambrosia that is you, before you are ever bee or flower.