Misdirection In Poetry

Following a path leading to another path and another

Photo by Beth Macdonald on Unsplash

I got to this poem through misdirection.
I awoke at 3 am (something I do not recommend)
my mind humming with thoughts of bees.

Their fuzzy black and yellow bodies
their dark knees coated with pollen.
How on a cold morning in early Autumn,

clinging to a night-chilled flower
their torpor keeps them silent and still
until the air of mid-morning jolts them awake.

Yes, I will write a poem about bees,
but not now, not at 3 am, or at least
not all of it — just a few words, I vow.

Barely opening my eyes, clutching a pen
and a scrap of paper, spilling out metaphors
and a few pleasing rhymes and phrases

so they won’t slip away as they so often do
between the hours of darkness and dusk
when the opaque sky slowly drains to grey.

In another room, my cats are chasing each other
with a vigor they rarely display.
Smiling at their antics distracts me from the bees