As he peered through hexagonal cells
within the hivestack he devised,
watching embryonic queens swirl in royal jelly—
before Mendel’s genes and pea plants,
before modern apiculture and Hyper Hyves,
before Pope Pius IX declared infallible dogma—
Dzierzon saw
sublimity in otherness,
perfection in the alien.
This contrasted by his defrocking
and eventual excommunication,
doubting the infallibility of a man.
How then could he not marvel
at the immaculate bee?
How could he not say, “I am pretty happy here,
despite the isolation, as I am always close
to my beloved bees —
which can transform even a desert into a paradise.”
