Into the hummingbirds’ saucer, I pour a mix,
one part sugar, four parts water. Sweetness
and thirst: two poles that guide
the living. When the bees
exhaust summer’s nectar,
I brew a sweeter one,
twice sugar in each cup
of water, so thick it slows
before spilling. At the feeder,
late-born bees tongue the syrup
that will transform to honey in the hive-
close winter days. First year of the pandemic,
my daughters and I baked fifteen pies and left them
at the doorways of our friends. Pecans captured in an amber matrix,
jaggery, honey and maple, almost unbearably sweet, each bite flooding the mouth with longing.