When in June the Lilies Have Their Day

Stooping to pluck a flecked wildflower,
nameless to me as yet (which is my own fault,
as such abundance is a fact, a gift)
I furrow, feeling the deficit of all the names

I cannot fathom, never having known. And more–
to fully fathom: sound its depths, or sound with lips,
or encompass what the arms can hold,
or–the way this bee, miraculously

holding itself aloft with too-small wings (how? how?)
peruses the inner sanctum of these petals,
and when pleased and a wee bit tipsy
(hence, perhaps, the bumble?) rises,

gold-dusted and delighted with its knowledge,
the body of which we have mostly forgotten.

Originally published in Forma Journal.