Late summer bees
yellow and logy
heavy with heat
like most of us,
can’t move quickly,
not like in June
when we dared,
we darted
pointedly,
blundering but sure.
September meadow flowering
with goldenrod,
grasses thick with ticks,
waning weeds.
They lie down with me
as I flatten them
dry crush beneath
my easy weight.
Scanning the blue above
slow moving bees
bumble into my field
recalling how drowsy we are
by the end of the season,
how welcome the hold
of the earth.