Blossoms and Bumblebees

Last Wednesday, in a piece entitled “Pollen,” we reflected in this blog on the blossoms that covered the trees around the Temple and Auditorium with white, fragrant blossoms. We discussed how the pollen from those flowers was, at the same time, the fertilization of new life and an irritant for the eyes of many beholders, like the pollination of new ideas.

Today, just a short week later, the blossoms are all but gone. Most have been replaced by green leaves, and the aged white petals lie golden on the ground below the trees.

The flowers that do remain on the trees seem to have attracted the interest of a number of bumblebees. There seems to have developed an urgency to flit from bloom to bloom, gathering pollen while they can. Indeed, the flight of these creatures seems to be almost frantic in its intensity. It reminds me of the opening stanza of the poem by Robert Herrick, entitled To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.

The hurried flight of the bumblebees and the dying of the flowers speak to me. Life is short; something I am increasingly aware of as I get older and time seems to speed up. The passage of time gives rise to a sense of urgency. We have only a limited amount of time to gather pollen, and use it to produce a crop of the fruit that is so needed in our world. We want our lives to count for something, and to leave a legacy for those who follow after.

May our lives be blessed with fruitfulness, and may we pay attention to the blossoms while they are in bloom.

Posted by Carman