African Bee Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The African Bee.

Yellow flowers in a ring protected by olive trees
no one knows their name I have to ask a botanist
for their Latin name. The dale side here has many
stone walls, tiny if seen from the moon overgrown
now those small plots of land yielding nothing but
poverty and deep seated resentment. The flowers
are not lilies, I can see that, it will soon be Easter
and the little church will be full of women, while
most men will hang about outside, near the bar,
white and yellow butterfly flies unsteadily around
in the wind and, and bumblebees drink from deep
red poppies. A swarm of killer bees fly by, I do not
speak or move till they are gone. My brother in law
Nené who live in Kinshasa, Congo, tells me that
the bees there live, exclusively, on orchid dew and
they are big as sparrows and can sting an elephant
till it dreams of yesterday, maybe it isn’t true but
I would not like to b stung by them. Now that the ice
on the poles melts will we see a fauna of rare flowers?
if so there must be bees there too and the friendly
bumblebee,