TELLING THE BEES

"A year has gone, as the tortoise goes,
   Heavy and slow;
And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows,
   And the same brook sings of a year ago."

Telling The Bees - John Greenleaf Whittier

A cloud of bees
angry not to be told.

"Why the delay...
why this day!"

I tell them I could find
no words.

Could hardly tell myself
the truth of your death.

Unable to believe
or to accept.

I couldn't speak
or rhyme.

Despite the Plath
or Greenleaf Whittier.

Grief is a voice
that cannot speak.

Death tears the tongue out
then commands me to speak.

I have only
this silence.

I come before this
court of bees.

Speak only
in silences.

I stand in the form
of a crucifix.

Accept the suffering
of your fierce stings.

Atoning for
the not telling.

The bees and I
now as one.

*

The old tradition of telling the bees when someone has gone over to the other side...usually in a little rhyme....keeping them in the know so that they know what's what and who's what now that there has been this huge shift in the world with the death of someone loved. Sometimes hives were aligned to the house in acknowledgement.