\Back to Poetry\
Feeding the Bees
Judith Deem Dupree
The Bees keep on coming. Wave after wave.
They drop upon the shallow pans in frenzied
clouds, in clusters - - great knobs of snarled
bee-bodies roiling, riding the backs of those
beneath. Along the rims they jostle ruthlessly,
thoraxes twisted toward the sugared swaths
of water. Falling, flailing, the writhe and
wrestle over my meager pouring, back-stroke
across the tiny seas. Or drown there
I, in my ignorance - - I led them to this faux,
sweet spring of life and bade them drink.
It is a savagery, a horror I have never watched
before. Like news from abroad, where beings
of my own kind, blood of my stinging blood - -
souls worn down to burning wires - - wrestle
for a cup of our unwanted rice, scavenge
and kill and die for a thimbleful of water
|
