It’s time for another Inkling challenge. This month, Margaret challenged us to “Choose a quote that speaks to you. Write a poem that responds to the quote. The words can be used as a golden shovel or throughout the poem or as an epigraph.”
Where to begin? I have been collecting quotes for over forty years. They are jotted on legal pads, scribbled in notebooks, carefully copied onto pretty paper. Finally, I opened to a random page in my current notebook. This is what I found:
“In all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous.”
Aristotle
That narrows it right down, doesn’t it? Coincidentally, sitting on my desk is a layer from a wasp nest that fell from a tree during a recent storm.
Those perfect little hexagons got me thinking…
How did the humble honeybee
learn Euclidean geometry?
Without blueprints, with nothing drawn,
they build a home of hexagons.
Mixing pollen, resin, oil,
day after day, worker bees toil.
Using their bodies, they mark and measure
every cell to house their treasure,
Liquid treasure, golden and sweet.
Treasure they share, a delectable treat!
Draft, © Catherine Flynn, 2022
Please buzz on over to visit my fellow Inklings to see how they responded to Margaret’s challenge:
Mary Lee Hahn @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone
Heidi Mordhorst @ My Juicy Little Universe
Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche
Then stop by Kat Apel’s blog, Kat Whiskers, for the Poetry Friday Roundup.
Reading to the Core 
It is fascinating how nature is geometrical. I love how you started with a question and write rhyming couplets. Golden treasure.
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This is right up my alley–nature poetry. Thank you for sharing your joy in nature in this poem. I’m obsessed with wondering about things like this. 🙂
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I love your hexagonal wonder—filled poem, all the questions/ thoughts in it, and Aristotle’s quote that inspired all-nature is fascinating, thanks!
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Wow, Catherine! First of all, I love that you had this wasp nest on your desk and were already celebrating it. Then, I’m blown away by how you crafted a rhyming poem that effortlessly incorporates scientific facts and wonder. What a response to the prompt! Brava!
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This poem is so YOU! Filled with wonder AND with facts. Seemingly effortless AND rhyming. (I just realized that Molly said practically the exact same things! So it must be true…)
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Well, nothing left for ME to say, latecomer that I am, except “I agree with Molly and Mary Lee.” And that the blueprints stanza is my favorite.
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I love a rhyming poem of facts. This is a joy. Thank-you, Catherine.
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