The Honey Bee
and the Bearded Dragon
(c)Trinny Sigler 2017
The honey
bees have been following us around. They feel a change in the air. They know
it's getting cooler, and the days are getting shorter. The flowers are dying,
and the little bees are frantically looking for pollen.
The bearded
dragon knows the moon is about to be full. He paces in his habitat, tearing it
up quicker than I can clean it up. He wanted to swim in the bath tub, but
abruptly tried to jump out. I tried to lift him all the way out, and he
abruptly tried to jump back in. Restless, unsatisfied, aware that something is
lacking in his 50-gallon-transparent life, but unsure of what would fix it.
And here we all are, a combination of the two, always busy,
safe in our glass boxes. I'm unsure if I'm observing you or you're observing
me. Sometimes I watch you fly away, feeling like I'm ready to go too, but then
I stay in my box, half scout bee and half bearded dragon. I watch you rush from
flower to flower drinking up as much pollen as possible before it's all gone.
Addicted to the pollen, farther and farther away you fly until one day your
wings are too worn out to get back home. I don't want so far from home that I can't get back, but I want the
pollen, and I want the restlessness to calm. I want to rise up and fly and hum
and do those things the bee does, but I don't want to leave the solid comfort
of the heated rock. I want my branch to cling to.
The season will change. The moon phase will pass, as it
always does. Until then we will hole up in the hives of ourselves, maybe
keeping warm, maybe freezing to a slow death, but we won't be able to tell until spring. But if the bees keep enough
friends around, they can heat their hive to ninety degrees, not just surviving
but thriving. The lizard hangs out in his hammock, close to the sun lamp and
the heat lamp, and if he closes his eyes, he can pretend he's in the desert or
even on the beach maybe, and his mind calms because he has the warmth of the
sun without the fear of birds.
The bee and the bearded dragon somehow have all the answers.
Find warmth among friends, make the
honey that will sweeten someone else's day, don't work so hard that you wear
out your wings. Hang out in a hammock, bask in the warmth of your personal sun,
go to the summer you can create in your mind.
