Poetry Friday: An Apiary Poem

Today an older poem that I wrote piece-meal over a few years, all about my first encounter with an actual beekeeper, after having fallen madly in love with the idea of owning my own humming hive. I was with a youth group when the beekeeper's wife impulsively invited us to all feel free to peek in if we liked and see her husband using the centrifuge machine to spin the year's honey out of the combs from his bee hives.

I will never forget the feeling in that room. So wonderfully warm and sweet and golden high. Someday that will be me. Hopefully, this coming fall.

I plan to order my first hive this winter.

The Bee Man

He was a wrinkled elder with optimist eyebrows floating over timid glasses

Drifting amiably out of the sanctuary in rangy steps

He had faith (they all say) in young men,

That made them turn out alright in spite of themselves

But I was turning myself out

And besides,

I was a girl

All flaxen hair and laughing ambition.

We were picking in his orchard, a boisterous group

Impulsively allowed to see him spin his yearly gold

Each stuck a head inside the door and winced appreciatively

Escaping quickly from the nausea of sugar + insects

I opened the wooden portal and saw

The sweetly toasting inner sanctum

A gleaming frame held to the window,

A white suit, sunshine radiant,

His grin, a modest veil of bees

And curl of smoky, honey fumes.

My small feet creaked in on his floor

---And the room paused---

I swear to you, the bees hung still in jealous silence

There was a shuffling of sticky tools

A shy ducking of the head,

A small wave of his hand

And I was dismissed

The only females under his wing industriously buzzed his honey into hexagonal gold,

And then hummed protectively around him in the glow of that October afternoon.

You can find more Poetry Friday participants entries at Alphabet Soup, the host blog for this week's edition.