Bumblebee, and: Halloween

Bumblebee

He had just finished unwinding the wild grape vine bindingthe mower blades and stood up too fast, the ninety degreeheat and humidity possessing his brain like morphine.He bent, placed hands on tractor seat, breathed deep,closed and opened his eyes. Hearing a motor his head

twisted skyward and saw a biplane trailing letters of vaporroll, plunge, become a bumblebee zigzagging in and outof the honeysuckle. He recalled that in last night's dreama yellow and black sun rose above the hillside, buzzeduntil his bedroom window vibrated so loudly he pressed

palms to glass to still it. Fingers tingling, he began to graspwhat his departed wife meant that time she pointed westas the sun sank, flared, then vanished, but the vibrationsstopped and there he was hours later on a path he mowedaround the prairie grass, leaning over the tractor seat,

skin burning as though an acid-tipped needle tattooed scriptacross his chest, neck, shoulders, back. When the vinesat his feet wriggled and from deep within white-domedelderberry behind him his mind whispered, "stand upstraight, peel off your shirt so I can read what's written,"

the body obeyed and mind, longing as always for revelation,strained to focus, but the sun's soft cotton glove seized it,then squeezed until reason, shape, and color succumbed.As he stood, his shoulders, back, neck becoming numb,the bumblebee spiraled out of the honeysuckle, circled,

dipped, tapped his lips, eyebrow, forehead, settled on an ear,buzzed. At once he understood: his wife meant there wasno birth, no dawn, no death, no sunset. Suddenly she lived.Again they sat on the creek bank watching silver minnowsdart in and out of the single shadow their bodies cast.

Then they strolled in November sunflowers, her eyes clear,unblinking, even as snow blurred the stalks. He shiveredand she fanned flakes from his face, warmed him with wax,placed him beneath the frosted soil. Soon came tranquilityhe hadn't known he needed, the odor of cut flowers, a drone

as if earth were an organ. Now he waits for time to resume,certain her fingers, like beams of light, one day will piercethe ground, lift him out, unwind the fibers that bind him.Season after season he sees her crossing a field of scarletpoppies, infinite petals stirred by the wings of a bumblebee.

Halloween

An innocent might think it is wind prying plywoodnailed across the windows of the condemned farmhouse

or the ragweed and burdock struggling to break freeof the frost, their fingers digging into the siding to pull

themselves up. From a bare oak an owl asks "Who?Who? Who?" as the rusted windmill's gears cry "Why?"

A jack-o'-lantern grinning through chocolate milkthat blackens the sky, spilled when a playful hand tipped

a tumbler, knows it is the children, costumes likerotted corn stalks, bags empty, who have returned home,

rattle the padlocked door to rouse cat, dog, mom,dad concealed in the cellar, but not a fiend who wielding

a white club leaped from the master bedroom oneHalloween and drove them out. They long to get back in,

to sit at the kitchen table, sculpt a face with mashedpotatoes, duel with spoon and fork, tap a tune on a plate.

They didn't want to raid a neighbor's garden, smashpumpkins on walk and porch, torch scarecrow and shed.

It's not wind one hears, only little people frightenedby the long night, pleading to be done with trick or treat.