Honey Bees Poem by Anindita Bose

Will the honey bees know that I have
destroyed their hive to suck the sweet liquid?

Few would come back to see the hive gone,
and see how some of their own have burnt
and died

by then I will have walked miles away with
my prize and visit local bazaars of Kolkata
to sell the honey.

I have done this so many times to feed my
wife and children

and why will I not, after all I am neither
literate nor rich, to work and earn

I was born in a farmer's family but now
I have given up and left my lands behind.

Leave me alone, who needs farmers when
the country can focus on other things, so I
deserve to loiter

and when I witnessed my elder son's death,
I learnt hunger is an enemy that cannot be
defeated...

I walked miles to find a solution, a man is
the guard of his family, yet there was nothing
I could do

so I killed.

Millions of bees died to keep my children alive.