My Friend Henry by Mario DeMatteo

I have a 7 year old next door neighbor named Henry.

Every Saturday morning, Henry knocks on my door

to show me something new and amazing he discovered in his backyard.

He brought me an empty butterfly chrysalis.

A piece of petrified wood the spirals he estimates to be a million, fafillion years old.

A body of a dragonfly he carefully placed in a wooden box,

the wings still perfectly intact.

I show Henry the perfectly spiraling bean plant climbing in search of the sun.

We smell the lavender bush.

I tell him it's made of magic.

I show him the spiral of a snail shell, that looks just like the spiral of the bean plant,

that looks just like the spiral of the petrified wood, that looks just like the spiral of

his fingerprints.

You see, Henry’s parents are atheists 

and have respectfully asked me

to please not introduce to Henry the notion of God or intelligent design.  

I like my neighbors

and Henry is my friend.

So I respect their request.

Kind of.

I'd never indoctrinate Henry,

only inspire him to marvel at the magic of nature

and the intricate detail in small living things,

the creepy crawlers and the winged beast of the sky

beyond his IPad and Xbox 360. 

So I show Henry a beehive formed in the corner of my yard 

hanging in the shade of the orange tree.

We sneak just close enough to see the intricate hexagonal patterns.

“How did you make such a cool house for the bees,” he asks.

I look into Henry’s eyes and see the galaxies forming,

 the earth perfectly tilted at the precise angle to stay in orbit around the sun, 

the tides dancing with the moon so they will know exactly how to caress the sea shore.  

I tell Henry that the bees have a brain the size of a sesame seed, 

yet their hive is made of thousands of perfect hexagons

which store more pollen than any other possible geometric pattern they might have chosen. 

Scientists are bewildered by their mathematical genius.

Bees can learn and remember complex flight calculations,

flapping their aerodynamic wings 200 times per second.

The US Air Force has been studying the bee for years to help them invent new to spy on us,

but you're too young for that Henry.

What I mean is, 

bees are amazing!!!

“But how did you build such a cool house for them.”

Henry I didn't build the beehive.

they built their own beehive.  

A seed of curiosity sprouts an oak tree in the center of Henry's imagination.

A bee lands on Henry's shirt.

Instead of squealing over in fear, 

Henry’s smile floods over 2000 thousand years of arguments between science and religion.

All that matters now is the small furry winged creature

crawling up the shirt sleeve of a small boy 

entering a world that would love to disappear his imagination,

disappear our instinctual romance with the nature,

disappear any notion of something way bigger than ourselves. 

Henry looks up at me and ponders the only question I could ever hope for,

“But who taught the bees how to build their amazing house?”