BEING ME
In one of my reveries,
I found myself with some bees
Alongside of their beehive.
Wondering what it was to be inside.
There the Queen Bee reigns supreme,
Living on nectar and cream,
Carried to her by worker bees,
Gathered from flowers and trees.
The drones do her housework,
With nary a fuss or quirk.
Their droning fills the hive,
While the Queen Bee is alive.
Outside, the hive looks like a dome,
Oddly shaped for a home.
What other domes have I seen
With my eyes or in a dream?
The Taj Mahal has a dome,
So has St. Peter's in Rome.
London's dome by Christopher Wrenn
Comes to me oft and again.
Then off I'll go in imagery,
St. Peter's Plaza I will see,
And walk upon the many stairs
That lead one to the upper airs.
Into the vast domain I'll go.
There's lots to see, go very slow.
It's all so huge, golden, strange,
I walk along the central lane.
View the baldachino* there,
And St. Peter's golden chair,
Think of all the popes and kings
Those who kiss the papal ring.
(There is so very much to see,
It tires out poor little me.)
I think I'll go to the Holy Door,
Wait there for what's in store.
John Paul II may just be home.
I'll go inside and with him roam.
Quiet as a little mouse
Shadowing him in his big house.
And then I'll go to works of art,
Raphael's paintings win my heart,
And in the great library,
There are manuscripts to see.
I feel a sense of lassitude,
Along with bits of gratitude,
And find myself beside the hive
Very glad to be alive.
I drift and doze in summer sun,
My traveling is all gone and done.
Mind and heart are satisfied,
Here in my chair I will abide.
The bees won't even bother me,
They know me now and they can see
I'm just a gatherer in thought
Which to my busy mind has brought
Some nectars sweet.
Phyllis This poem is from the private collection
of Fr. Louis Anderson and is used by his permission.
* Baldachino is a structured canopy over an altar.