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by Carol Hamilton Shortest night, St. John's Eve, he Patron Saint of Bees. I arrived on Acoma at the dawn of his day. A young guide walked me around the primitive, mesa-top village, showed the desert-rock reservoirs and the outhouses at the four corners. We were trailed by sounds of battery-powered radios seeping out of adobe homes. The huge beams of the high-ceilinged, dirt-floored church stretched above us. Men had dragged them there from afar on a long ago faith-filled pilgrimage. Preparations were underway for celebrations later when I would be on the road again, absent from the sacred. I should have stayed and prayed for the bees. They have abandoned me again this year, my tomatoes, my cucumbers, zucchini, and I pollinate with a little paint brush. The bees know that I love them, and they should do their little travel dances to lead their fellow hunter-gatherers to me. Last year we lived in a miracle, bees of every kind here with me under the arched trellis of cucumber vines. We hummed together and gave thanks for bounty all summer. But now they have forgotten me again. The ancient rituals will go on today at Acoma without me, and I am sure the honey bees are busy, dancing directions today in someone's garden Copyright 2014. All rights reserved. |