Jazz Garden Dreaming

Poetry - Narrative - Honeybee

Art contributed by For Love of Fiction

---

Jazz Garden Dreaming

Ninjastroni 2026

---

---

Katie zoomed out the door while humming a tune

her antennae picked up from the local airwaves.

Good vibrations, it seems, was this station’s theme.

The announcer’s voice was smooth royal jelly.

She’d been promoted from packing to foraging flowers,

fast-tracked around hive entrance guard duty.

Last night, inside that snug, crowded hive,

after her final shift at Queen’s Pollen Packing,

Katie tossed and turned, too jazzed to nap.

Try as she might, rest gave way to excitement.

She tried catching z’s, tried numbering sheep,

but those sheep that came didn’t hop fences.

Instead, they wore bee suits with cute headband antennas,

sang, “Today, oh, today! You can sip on fresh nectar!

Overstuff your new leg-mounted pollen baskets!

We’ll help you get ready! Watch our wiggle sheep waggle bee dances!”

Up to an hour ‘til sunrise, studying

buzz patterns, stylistic

records of plants’ favorite music,

which petals have billboards to guide a bee’s journey,

and which wigwag of dancing says, “Flora! That way!”

Thought with her zeal she would burst

if she wasn’t first to zing out the hive hangar door.

While the other girls dozed, Katie supposed

to the preflight deck she would scuttle.

All systems were go once the sun’s melted gold

poured over the flower-filled meadow.

With her audio tuned to Flora-buzzBUZZ,

Katie set sail on her maiden voyage.

Ninjastroni

---

Thanks for reading!

---

An alternate version of this poem can be found here.

Also published in ivan’s nook 📚 April 26 Weekly LitMag (Issue 9), found here.