Honey
Only calmness will reassure
the bees to let you rob their hoard.
Any sweat of fear provokes them.
Approach with confidence, and from
the side, not shading their entrance.
And hush smoke gently from the spout
of the pot of rags, for sparks will
anger them. If you go near bees
every day they will know you.
And never jerk or turn so quick
you excite them. If weeds are trimmed
around the hive, they have access
and feel free. When they taste your smoke
they fill themselves with honey and
are laden and lazy as you
lift the lid to let in daylight.
No bee full of sweetness wants to
sting. Resist greed. With its top off
you touch the fat gold frames, each cell
a hex perfect as a snowflake,
a sealed relic of sun and time
and roots of many acres fixed
in crystal-tight arrays, in rows
and lattices of sweeter latin
from scattered prose of meadows, woods.
Notes
Where Bruce Guernsey’s Yam burrowed deep into the scarred, subterranean darkness of the earth, Robert Morgan’s Honey lifts our gaze to the delicate geometry of the apiary, where harvesting sweetness demands absolute stillness, gentle smoke, and the complete mastery of fear. The delicate translation of scattered wildflower meadows into sealed, crystal-tight arrays reveals the disciplined alchemy of natural surplus, demonstrating that true abundance cannot be violently seized through greed, but must be approached with calm, reciprocal reverence between human hands and the hive. It illuminates August’s theme of Feast as a golden relic of distilled sun and time, reminding us that life’s purest sweetness is unlocked only when we quiet our own agitation and meet the world’s quiet labor with patience and grace. #poetry #robertmorgan #feast #august #honey
Honey" by Robert Morgan. Text as published in Topsoil Road: Poems (LSU Press, 2000). © Robert Morgan.