Bees in Amber

“I wish I could remember that first day,
first moment of your meeting me.”
Christina Rossetti

We did meet, sometime, didn’t we?
Or have I always known you?

And if we did meet, how did you come
to me? Soft, perhaps like water-lilies

stain the lake...custard cupped, saucers
the greenest of things green?

Like a hummingbird, maybe... drinking
from a cone flower?

Like a raindrop sculpting a circle
in a glass of champagne?

Like a Sara Orange tip – baptised
with morning dew?

I walked beside you on a path through
a forest, didn’t I? We kissed in the shadow
of the trees...

a lipstick ring imprinted on your cheek
and your name on my heart?

You made the pines crowd into a shade for me,
and did we hear the sound

of a cloud of blue butterflies – their wings
all a-stutter?

The forest, the butterflies...the bees;
ah yes, the bees, and where, indeed, that path?

They really did exist, didn’t they, and what of
you, or me...or us?