Bee Purple
Bees' eyes can pick up much of what ours can, but in addition they can see a
                    wavelength of light, a color, impossible for us to perceive.
                                        —Philip J. Hilts, Memory's Ghost

Deep in a montane forest two bees flit
among the sego lilies, seeing dark
purple crosses where all we see are white
petals tinged sometimes with hints of lilac.
In early summer these showy flowers
are bells ringing where the mountain towers
above us and we are deaf to it all.

Perhaps this soil is singing. Perhaps June
ends with scents of lavender and heal-all
even though we cannot smell them, and soon
wind feels exactly like the sea. We call
this sundown. We welcome the full moon
fading to a white we have learned to doubt,

the flash of gray blue pinyon jays whose short
quavering laugh is what ushers us out
of the pines and into the world we thought
we knew. We welcome night. The vast silence
is filling with sound as our still world spins.

Copyright © 2007 Floyd Skloot All rights reserved
from Selected Poems: 1970-2005
Tupelo Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission