I don't know what things are like down in Mexico, but here things have gotten crazy with late spring. In my own backyard there are honeysuckle vines that have wrapped themselves over the fence, become part of the fence in fact; the whole place is virtually cliche-ed with that smell, ridiculous the way it colors the evening air, little nectar drops clutching desperate to the obscene tips of each blossom, perfuming like a truth serum (a man is liable to give away secrets in a swoon like this!), wrapping an odor around a boy's heart, intractable, you can actually feel a tug if you try to go back inside; insane really what memory can do, how hope can translate into reality.
And nearby, in a little hive, the bees (who have worked their own magic here) doze lightly by their viney little Japanese whorehouse, drunk on a day's worth of nectar, sounds of their snoring barely audible in the bottom chamber of my ear, connected to my nose, my poor enchanted nostrils can hear these bees talking in their sleep and they just keep chanting:
"Screw this up, watch this die, let this go and the scent of honeysuckle will disappear forever. You may go back inside and wash the dishes, read a book, play with your dice, remember your past in its glories and boredoms and fall asleep in front of the TV. But this thing, these blossoms, will never exist for you, not again in your tiny lifetime. We've made you a gift. We are bees of a purpose. We are too busy for hesitators. We do not look lightly on squanderers."
I don't know what blooms by the Mexican sea, what flowers cling tight to the Gulf coast. I imagine it as I sit vigilant in a fold-out camp chair as dusk coaxes my vines and my bees to the position of absolute religion. I sit and wonder and I can hear the waves and feel the breeze. I can't wait to hear what it smells like.
