To Your Sister by Eric VerteinAs I sit on a stump
in the heart of the woods
I find beauty, grace and peace.
The song of a bird,
the rustle of leaves
Here I find my release.
A bee it bumbles
and drops to a petal
a flower's pollen to attend,
I ask so curious
I truly implore,
"Whose plan do you follow, my friend?"
So busy he applies
to the task his great mind
my inquiry he totally ignores,
Then with a buzz
no wave nor "Ta-ta"
He moves on to other chores.
So noble a creature
offering his skills
To better flower-kind!
Who bartered? Who offered?
Whose pragmatic hand
This mutual venture signed?
No labor union
No truce of wills
Just plants and bees allied
For years upon years
and ages upon ages
Symbiotically harmonized
E'er have they weighed
The pros with the cons
To settle on such a communion?
Was there once
upon a time
When bees tried a different union?
Did they try rocks
or porcupines
or mud or skunks or wood?
How did they survive
the tests and the trials
'til in flowers found livelihood?
But maybe, just maybe
E've wrongly addressed
The nobility and dignity of such a design
To creatures and Nature
Who cannot reason
Whose own work cannot define.
Yes, maybe, just maybe
I of all creatures
With reason and wisdom infused
Alone am to learn
To change and adapt
With the art of decision amused.
So now I apply
my mind with new vigor
As I sit on the stump in the vale.
To whose great idea,
To whose wise voice
Do the bee and the blossom hail?
It's not a man's
or a wooded owl's
As wise as some think them to be,
They have no tongue,
No hand, no might
To which to bee shall heed.
But heed he does
Each day each year;
To him a plan is provided.
A plan that blesses
gives and sustains
A plan in which we've confided
For just imagine
If the bee left his post
And left all of the flowers unattended.
What would become
of the aples and fruit
The food on which we've depended?
Who'd do his work?
Who'd make a new plan?
Would the blossoms find someone new?
on such short notice
Who'd fill in the gap
Who'd pollinate the trees? Who...you?
Woul you, could you
Coax that honey bee
To get up and carry out his job?
Perhaps mor daring
You'd thoughtfully employ
That annoying Asian Bettle mob?
No, dumbfounded
I must concede
That no force on earth can command
Bee to his duty
And flower to comply
So this power is not of man.
So leave this stump
I must and I should
For it offers nothing more than the bee,
for something wiser
And stronger created
This wood, this flower, this bee and me.
and if the bee
Throughout the ages
Has lived in constant submission
Maybe he's wiser
Than I first thought
If I'm unaware of MY mission.
If God speaks to bees
So convincingly
I'm sure that he wants to speak also to man.
But not in the tongue
of a buzz or a whir
But in a voice that we would understand.
Surely such a God
Would make himself known
He'd speak in some way and write it down.
He'd say who he is
He'd say who we are.
He'd explain why we return to the ground.
Indeed he speaks
With a voice quite grand
So forceful no man could bear it to hear.
So through gentler tones
Of voices more common
God speaks through men to allay our fear.
In holy writ
In the Bible true
God answers what we need to know.
He's the source of good,
But he's been betrayed
By the choice of men and the evil Foe.
He hates betrayal
Denies all evil
He shuns the abuses of his design.
But in mercy
He sent his only Son
To suffer for all mankind.
So much has God
To say to us
That he gives his Church and his Word.
To speak to us
In human terms
and not with the songs of the bird.
But the birds have a message,
The same as the bee,
A single word of God they speak.
Listen carefully
Even to the leaves
And you might hear that word, "Seek..."
Whom to seek
They do not tell.
Let man his wisdom exercise.
To seek the God
From whom he came
and hence become a bit more wise.
So marvel at the bee
Marvel at the green
Marvel 'til your marveled out.
But don't be a marvel
That after your marveling
Ther's nothing left but doubt.
Come with me then
And you will see
That there's purpose to more than just the bee.
There's puropose now
There's purpose tomorrow
Ther's life beyond in which to believe.
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