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bees

TITANS

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read1.3K views

As I was taking ice cubes from the freezer

in what was a garage and now is a shed

for motley matters – warm with early spring –

I heard, behind me, a frantic, aggressive

buzzing, like a high-pitched rattle. A large

bumblebee near the roof was partly caught

in a web. A hefty house spider approached.

They disappeared into darkness. The rattling

ceased. The bee returned alone into the light

but was trammelled in the web – and I,

a minor god of winter, with hoar frost

in my beard, observing a war in heaven,

was helpless like a mortal bystander

as that grand creature flew to its death.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE DEARTH OF HONEY

Where the mortar between old bricks has crumbled

in the weathers, where the felt of a flat roof

has lifted, beneath slates above a gutter

through a gap the height of a feather,

among cascades of ivy on a high wall

topped with broken glass, wild bees are about

their business, crowding buddleia, bending

stalks of lavender, devoted subjects

of their queen, diminutive beside

dying cousins. On their fragile wings

we, republican or monarchist, depend,

each flight an errand of life, the music

of warmth, the gentle drone of summer, once

gone never returning.