Can you see the bee?

My husband and I took a walk today after lunch.

(Does that make us … co-walkers?)

How wonderfully commonplace it is these days, to be out and about — on foot! — and greeting neighbors, known and unknown, doing the same.

Since he had to get back to work-from-home sooner than I did, my husband went ahead while I lingered in the sun. 

Our street was quiet, only birds chirping and the occasional car whooshing past in the distance.

Then, an unusual sound caught my ear.

A hum.

A loud hum.

Bees!

I am not an entomologist, but they looked like honeybees, swarming a neighbor’s cherry tree. 

OK, I’m not a botanist either, but I think it’s a type of cherry. And, to be honest, I first wrote “etymologist” in that sentence.

But back to those bees.

I stood and watched them buzzing from blossom to blossom. Their sheer number gave me such joy.

In the midst of this human pandemic, the natural world lives, and grows, on.

For that I give thanks.