Cartography of Bees

In the fallow lot, the bees map air with their bodies, small compass needles thickening the sunlight. I watch the dust rise where their routes return, as if the ground is remembering a language.

The city is nearby, but its sirens are far away. Here, a milkweed stalk lifts a green throat, and the hive hums like a page being turned. The world leans in, listening for nectar.

My grandfather kept such silence in his hands, smelling of cedar and smoke, the worn box of tools. When he spoke, it was a path through tall grass— not to a house, but to the place a house was.

At dusk the bees come back carrying evening, gold grains in their legs, a small harvest of light. The wind closes the map, and the lot goes dark, but the routes remain, stitched in the air.