Peril Sonnet
By David Baker
Where do you suppose
they’ve gone the bees now
that you don’t see them
anymore four-winged
among flowers low
sparks in the clover
even at nightfall
are they fanning have
they gone another
place blued with pollen
stuck to their bristles
waiting beyond us
spring dwindle is what
we call it collapsing
neonicotinoids
“high levels in pneu-
matic corn exhaust”
loss of habitat
or disappearing
disease in the way
of our kind so to speak
what do you think
they would call it
language older than
our ears were they
saying it all along
even at daybreak —
Source: Poetry (January 2016)