(Note: I know this is too prosaic, but I’m too upset to make this into a decent poem so soon)

They’re gone. Just the other day, we saw 
the workers clustered around the mouth
of the hive, noted the industrious zip

in and out that heralds spring foraging. 
I’d come to assume the hum from this one hive
would continue on, as it has stayed alive

over five years. All sprung from the wild 
swarm my husband strong-armed from a friend’s tree.
Before. Before. The sweetness these bees bestowed 

as they reemerged each spring, surviving five fingers 
worth of winter, ushering us through the deaths 
of my father and nephew, returning even as our sons

left home. Winged metaphors for caretakers
and family, inspiring peace as I witnessed how 
these creatures let go of their dead, undertaker

bees placing the lifeless outside of their home.
That we all might see what was once a body
in vibration lacks its essence at the end. Still.

Still. I miss these bees as if they are the sum
of all who have gone before them. I fill. Here. 
Here’s the water you drink in the nearby birdbath.
                                        Come back.