Felt the wish upon her tongue to fly

This afternoon for the first time in decades, I was stung by a bee. Unlike its summer's coreligionist, it caught in my hair without a telltale buzz, so that I put up my hand to comb out a trapped leaf or twig and received instead a stinger in the pad of my thumb. I was able to pluck it out within surprised seconds since it stood out as clearly as a splinter, but I felt terrible about the bee. The pain had started to ebb by the time I got back to the house, but I took the second half of my walk with my thumb in a baking soda plaster. I was reassured by the sight of other bees in bushes of lavender and sunflowers.

In better news of the insect kingdom, the last two monarchs hatched in the late afternoon and were released by my niece, eagerly fluttering their stained glass wings to the sun.