Hospice Care For A Bee: A New Poem of Mine

      

There are bumblebees in the Arctic. One of which is the Bombus Polaris (photo credit for image above). They are poikilothermic, or cold-blooded, as are all insects. Like most Alaskans, they are also resilient and have adapted to the cold in diverse ways including what looks like shivering. To view an excellent video on these bees click this link.

They are larger in size than bumble bees you might see gathering pollen from a neighbor's rose garden in Upstate New York. They have a wide barrel of a body and are quite fluffy looking. Some locals describe their thick coat as a parka of gold and coal colored hair. Others note their yellow, leaning towards orange, and black admired attire as one made from fine velvet. 

They are the only pollinating bee that lives in the high Arctic. They will linger in the cup of a yellow poppy out on the tundra gathering not only pollen but solar heat. I am very familiar with these flowers. I spied them out on the tundra when I lived in the coastal Arctic village of Wainwright, about 300 miles above the Arctic Circle. I took this photo in 2018 while walking behind the school that I taught at, Alak School. You can see part of my shadow on the left.

Too, I watercolor painted them. The first painting below, of both Arctic poppies and cotton, was made during the initial months of me teaching myself how to paint while living in extreme isolation in Wainwright. It was a gift I gave myself. I now wish I had painted one with a bee sitting within one of their yellow cups. The second is of a work I went on to complete a year and a half ago of salmon and Arctic poppies in the ocean. It is my artistic interpretation of the often stated phrase by those whose families have lived for generations on the North Slope, "The ocean is our garden." My mother would say, "If its a garden, where are the flowers?" I painted them in alongside fish and kelp.

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Back to Polaris Bombus bees ... Prior to living and working in Wainwright, I resided in Utqiaġvik, formerly known as Barrow, and taught first grade at Ipalook Elementary School. After living there for a few months, I made my weekly walk over to the local grocery store, which included trekking across the sandy beach of the Arctic Ocean, to buy some food for the week. Before I left my teacher residence, I told myself that today I would say "Yes" to invitations and locally advertised adventures. I was motivating myself to be less present on the weekends in my classroom and more within the community.

I wasn't in the store long before I started talking to a man who I had not met before. Yet, I had heard of him. His name is Brooke. I knew that he had a community wide reputation for being kind and patient with children that arrived for urgent or not so urgent medical needs at the nearby E.R. He is a nurse. I am a lower elementary teacher. We had an instant shared connection; the dedicated care of children. After he introduced himself to me and we talked for a few minutes, he asked me to have dinner with him, a date, sometime that week. I had this flash of thought in my mind that I had promised myself to say yes to invitations that day. I accepted. 

Brooke and I went on walks together, had meals at the local Sam & Lee's Restaurant and he often visited me in my classroom after school. We laughed, talked and shared an affection for each other in this place so far from both of our homes. Yet, our romance didn't last long as we both had very full schedules. I was teaching full time while being a full time grad student. Too, an ER nurse is a very busy human being. Our paths further parted when he left Utqiaġvik and headed to Kotzebue, Alaska. Shortly after his departure, I accepted a new teaching assignment below the Arctic Circle. That was eight years ago.

There are both good and challenging things about social media. One of the good things is that you can reach out to people who were once frequent in your life, but who you have lost contact with. I did this with Brooke this past winter. Thankfully, he eagerly replied and we have renewed our friendship. However, we now live on opposite sides of the map. He no longer lives in Alaska and I currently do. Us catching a cup of coffee together isn't possible, but an hour long phone call is.

It was during a very recent phone conversation that he shared with me two stories. One was about following an Arctic bumblebee across a clover covered field in Kotzebue. The other was about giving hospice care to a bee a few days before the call. As soon as he finished telling me these stories, I asked him if I could use both in a poem that was already writing itself in my mind. He agreed. 

I finished it two days later and sent it to him the next.  He messaged me that he found it to be a very good poem and was deeply touched that he was its inspiration. He also agreed I could include his name below the title. I was gladdened that my words gave him joy so many years after our time together in Utqiaġvik . 

Hospice Care for a Bee

for Brooke

He said 

into the phone,

“There are bees

in the Arctic,” 

a place familiar 

to both of us.

He added

that once 

he followed 

a velvet-clothed

bumble bee 

through a 

white clover-

covered field 

in Kotzebue.

He walked 

a yardstick 

or two 

behind the 

Arctic bee,

Bombus polaris,

as it zig-zagged

across the 

permafrost-

laced landscape

and then 

dipped down

below moss

and lichen,

entering a hole 

in the earth

where a lemming

or siksrik had

sheltered the

winter before.

As I listened,

I saw him

walking his 

long-leg lengths 

across the

flower-flecked tundra.

I smelled the clover.

I saw the bumblebee.

I felt the warmth of a hand

I had often held. 

Memories of place 

and intimacy 

choreographed 

by the flight 

of a single

bumblebee.

Years later, 

thousands of miles

from the Kotzebue

clover-covered field,

leaving the library of 

a southern state,

he spied a fallen, 

curled bee

on a summer-hot,

cement sidewalk.

He slid beneath the bee

paper fetched 

from his pocket

and carried it 

to a close by 

petaled garden.

In the petals

of a bi-colored 

coleus plant

he placed

the silent bee

to later wake,

or find final 

comfort in 

its small

double-lipped,

blue flowers,

ones it may have 

gained pollen from

on another day.

He said 

into the phone,

“Hospice care 

for a bee.” 

Let me 

wrap myself

in velvet both

yellow and black,

and dust my form

with pollen’s gold 

to see if

he’d follow me 

across a flowered

Arctic field, or 

what tender care

he’d offer if

I was felled

from sky to earth.

If not,

unfurled 

from pollen-

dusted velvet,

I’ll gather 

flowers from

said field and

earth and

draw the 

bumblebee

to me.

Susan Slocum Dyer

8/01/2024

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