The nights are cool now. The ground is glistening, and the night is glistening, too, just beginning to lighten. With every step, I leave footprints in the dew. It is early, and chill. Creatures of the diurnal world are still sleeping, and creatures of the nocturnal world are looking for a safe place to sleep.
I have abandoned all hope of sleeping and have crept outside to watch the bumblebees sleep instead. As night comes on, they crawl into the balsam flowers, those colorful bells of red and purple and pink. I love to see them sheltering from the rain beneath a giant canna leaf, but I especially love to see them sleep, their fuzzy bumblebutts poking out of the blossoms. It comforts me to know my garden is full of sleeping bees.
I brush the edge of a flower—barely touching it, an innocent accident—but the bee is angry, unforgiving. She backs out of her bed and rears back. She waves her bumblebee arms and buzzes at me.
I squat to look at her, careful not to touch, but she does not trust me. She knows I belong to the lumbering kind, the true bumbling trouble at the heart of the world.