“The little worker bee lives, I have read, about three weeks.

Is that long?

Long enough, I suppose, to understand
that life is a blessing.
I have found them — haven’t you? —
stopped in the very cups of the flowers, their wings
a little tattered — so much flying about, to the hive,
then out into the world, then back, and perhaps dancing.  Should the task be to be a scout—a sweet, dancing bee? I think there isn’t anything in this world I admire more than the perfection of life of the bees.”

—Mary Oliver