Paul Goldfinger photo. 2019. ©

Bee Gone

By Jean Wiarda

When I stepped through the doorway a bee flew by and was gone.

Standing motionless, I realized that something was different, very different.

The world was oddly still and utterly silent, as though everything was over and gone

and the bee had been the last to leave.

Had there been a message to go?  A text, an email that I’d missed?

I wondered, “Is everything OK?  Is everything ‘as it should be?’”

If everything is ‘as it should be’, shouldn’t I have been gone before the bee?

If everything else is gone, why am I still here?”

I paused, looking and listening for some sign, an indication that nothing was amiss.

Not a leaf was stirring, no bird twitter, no far off sounds of people or machines.

All was eerily quiet, as if I had stepped into a photo

instead of through my front door.

And then, there it was . . . finally . . .

a chirp, a note and then a few more bird calls.

It was over, this strange interlude.

Jean Wiarda is a Jersey Girl living in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.

She is an FOB  (Friend of Blogfinger)

AARON COPLAND:  “Appalachian Spring”   From the Lincoln Portrait.  Zubin Mehta conducting.