Your Daily Poem

This site exists for one purpose only: to help dispel the ugly and absolutely untrue myth that poetry is boring. Granted, a lot of poetry is boring, but you won't find it here. At Your Daily Poem, you'll find poetry that is touching, funny, provocative, inspiring, uplifting, and surprising. It may punch you in the gut, it may bring tears to your eyes, it may make you laugh out loud, but it most assuredly will not bore you! Visit our home page every day to see a different poem.

Poetry on YDP—by poets living and long dead, famous to completely unknown--is specially selected for accessibility and appeal. Thanks so much for visiting—and remember: a poem a day keeps the doldrums away!

Sitting with Bees
by
Karla Huston

The buzz and fumble, bellies
brushing yellow fuzz, potentilla
blossoms with butter stamens so close
I can feel heat sizzle,
see the furious legs trembling,
yet bees scarcely notice me
in the corner of their fuming,
book of poems in my lap,
tapping pencil counting
measuring lines
of wasps, sweat bees, yellow
jackets, bumblebees — even flies
so busy with business,
the commerce of sweet making.

From An Inventory of Lost Things (Centennial Press, 2009).
This poem first appeared in The MacGuffin (2006) and in Arborvitae (2008).
Used here with the author's permission.

Karla Huston, formerly of Appleton, Wisconsin, now lives near Long Beach, California. She served as Wisconsin Poet Laureate from 2017-2018 and is the author of A Theory of Lipstick (Main Street Rag Publishing Company: 2013) and Ripple, Scar, and Story (Kelsay Books: 2022) as well as eight poetry chapbooks. Karla's poems, reviews and interviews have been widely published, including in the 2012 Pushcart Best of the Small Presses anthology.. Learn more about her at www.karlahuston.com.

wendy morton:
not just a sweet poem, a poem full of poetry: assonance, alliteration, consonance. A song.
Posted 07/13/2011 10:46 AM

KevinArnold:
ah, the commerce of sweet making.
Posted 07/13/2011 10:35 AM

Jo:
Love it Karla. Thanks for the sweetness this July morning.
Posted 07/13/2011 09:43 AM

jeanie:
sweet, sweet, sweet, Karla! love it.
Posted 07/13/2011 07:00 AM

Gary Busha:
Excellent poem and word choice by one of Wisconsin's finest poets. Alliteration is effective. Thanks, Karla.
Posted 07/13/2011 05:39 AM

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