Corners don't feel good

I round the corner,

walking quietly, trying to avoid the old man who always makes some lewd comment after explaining to me that he needs a woman, a housekeeper.

The bulldozer acts as a gateway and as I walk past in and into the walled in garden numerous small songbirds flit out of the beds and onto the concrete walls. I feel a blessing. I feel that yes, I have actually done something here. There must be a dozen of these birds, looking down on me, singing sweet songs on a frigid day in December. I wonder what they were eating, maybe they were picking through the hundreds of tomatillo fruits left on the ground to rot because I couldn't find the creativity to do anything with them in September. I so deeply adore how nature feasts on my laziness.

I walk past the garden and towards the bee boxes.

Silent and Still

18 degrees fahrenheit with a threat of a blizzard coming from the south.

I push my hat up to expose my ear and press it agains the cold white box.

a soft buzzzzzzz

I listen to each of the 4 sides figuring out where the cluster of bees is...mostly on the north side nearing the upper middle of the boxes. A trances states waves over me. These bees! What ARE they doing in there? I hear a girl drop to the hard screen at the bottom of the hive. It is cold, so cold. Another bee drops. A certain clang at the bottom of the hive shatters any comfort I may have felt at the soft buzz of them surviving thus far. Fear strikes me again. What is it about them, I feel such awe, love, and fear around them...Just a bunch of bugs, what power they possess!

I feel myself, I feel them. I caress the hive, it is so cold. The corners so hard. The corners. They just don't seem right. "The bees will figure it out" I often hear myself and others saying. Live and let live. I will do my best to not impose my will on them, to not anthropomorphize and to really listen and behave in a way of integrity for the bug communities.

Top bar hives seem like the next logical step for me. Oh! The thought of a table saw and lumber and angles and measuring is pretty daunting. But it does seem like the next best move, get rid of the corners. Corners don't feel good.