'Women Are About to Explode'

May 25, 2025

Cyril Neville, the great bandleader, musician and singer, has been posting often, lately, on Facebook about Bees. (Bees as endangered pollinators.) Cyril’s Posts reminded me of this poem that came to me while driving North from Bakersfield, California on a hot Summer day (July 14, 2008—my birthday) while working for Organic Valley Farms on the 4-pager that would be titled, ‘Local Control and Organic Solutions, and after working in preceding Spring on the STOP the SPRAY campaign in Marin County and elsewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area.

	WOMEN ARE ABOUT TO EXPLODE

Women are about to explode
With dreads that line the sky
Like bombers.
They know that something is so wrong
It gets into their milk
And bowels. 

Like, Bees—
And tornadoes without warning—
And those white trails that criss-cross and blur blue sky
From sunrises unto sunsets,
And the Beeps, Texts, Call-Backs of our incessant 
Hurry into an all-digital Age.

And those airplanes that may soon spray 
Hills, Bays, Playgrounds
Of Marin, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, … 
Counties again.

The silence about Bees.

		First version, July 14, 2008, 
		driving north from Bakersfield
		while working with Organic Family Farms
		on the ‘Local Controls, Organic Solutions’ 4-pager
		and after working on the “Stop the Spray’ campaign.

https://www.kalb.com/2025/05/13/louisiana-bee-farmers-sound-alarm-rising-rate-bee-deaths/