Digging Up A Beehive Poem by MARINA GIPPS

A beehive went underground.
I found it just as I was looking
for sweetness.
No stingers on my knees, praying
to the red earth of sorrows
for the beehive that had lost
meaning-

To follow the queen
to work and produce
sweet things.

I love honey,
though not the caretaker
who controls it.
The caretaker, so noble,
extracting some more honey-
a sweet hitler.
The bee is worked hard
into a slow buzzing frenzy.
It is the yearning for honey
that brings about
those killer bees-

'And there came out of the smoke
locusts upon the earth: and unto them
was given power, as the scorpions of the earth
have power, ' a dead woman prophesized.
But what would we do without honey?

So sweet to dig up
this abandoned hive.