Time wasted on facts, figures—
If knowledge leads nowhere
throw pen and notebook into the fire.
No hard data will enlighten us further.
Are you recyclable? Ballpoint and pencil
scratches on the very product I’m leaning on.
When’s the last time you’ve paused,
startled by the creak of hickory or Carolinian oak,
marveled at maple’s running sap and twirling keys,
aspen leaves’ me first dance at any hint of breeze?
Each recites a different story than we dictate to ourselves,
each grants a lesson by root, mushroom, moss and flower.
Do you know the colors of milkweed in bloom?
Have you crawled inside a nurse log?
Lounged in wildflower’s golden meadows,
or climbed the pliant willow at water’s edge?
Within this canopy, colors burst with bees
refusing to give up their lives for false alarms.
Even the wasp has no time for attack.
Yellow with reflection, observe the business of pollen,
listen to the soft burr of transparent wings—
hive-imprinted dance celebrates
their measure of collective purpose.
This poem first appeared in Outlying Voices (Parkland Poets, 2023).
—
Lynn Tait is an award-winning poet/photographer residing in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. She’s the author of the poetry collection You Break It You Buy It, Guernica Editions 2023. Her poems have appeared in Contemporary Verse 2, Vallum, FreeFall, Literary Review of Canada, Prairie Fire, Anti-Heroin Chic, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Muleskinner Journal, Last Leaves, and in over 100 North American anthologies.
