Bumblebees Always Fly Free

A narrative poem about living in stagnation and the decision to move forward.

A row of trees lines the street,
Lamp posts decorate the sidewalks,
Little bits of weeds spring from between the cement cracks.

Automobiles rush by, one by one,
Carrying gaseous clouds of chemicals.
Sprinkling its toxic dust between the same cement cracks.
If plants could cough, they would.

A woman walks along that sidewalk,
She is trying to find a path,
So confused and lonely she sits on the sidelines,
Hugging her knees, sitting in the grass.

Tears drop from her eyes, 
It is salty milk on the tree roots that feed the darkness.

Passers-by see this scene, 
The little woman is sitting by the tree.
They turn quickly to look the other way. 
There will only be bystanders gawking at her today.

Bystanders do nothing as her tears fall quicker. 
Loneliness has made her tired, depressed, and bitter.

A child with his mother sees this terrible scene. 
Tugging on his mother’s sleeve he asks,
“That lady on the grass, she is crying, we should go see!”

With a commanding hush, the mother scolds “No! Let her be!”
The child looks over his shoulder as he is pulled across the street,
He never understood why you pick and choose whom to show kindness to,
It never applied to everyone you meet.

The man comes over with unknown intentions,
The woman’s tear-stained face looks into his eyes, 
Her wailing starts to quiet down. 
He drops a penny by her leg and scoffs.
He has no time for her.

She felt safer seeing him leave,
Watching him vanish into the trees.

Standing up and brushing off her dress, 
She feels it’s time to leave.
She notices a tiny flower at her feet and a little bumblebee.

Its wings flapped so fast as it moved flower to flower. 
Its wings you could hardly see.
She wished to be like that bee, happily harvesting honey.
Even though a bird could eat it at any moment, the bee flies on.
Its little wings beat to its own unique drum.

The bee doesn’t see the bystanders around it,
It only sees the flower, 
The bumblebee is always free because…
It’s only moving forward.