Bees

Bees, then.
I haven't thought of you
for months, except when
pegging out the clothes,
feet shifting
in clover where you work.
Pollen bearers
who serve fertility,
you are the ones
I've most wished to celebrate:
guardians of this hive—
building and humming,
storing and culling—
the shapers who know
the ways of the queen-muse
with her gorgeous abundance,
the sterility she inflicts
as she lies being nurtured.
Do you remember
the golden honeycomb
of Daedalus,
the twinned bee brooch
from Knossos,
Mycenae's beehive tombs?
You dance through these images
of opulence, ceremonious
balance, death; you are there
at the birth of poets,
buzzing and swarming
near the mouth
to instil
the gift of eloquence.
Your own voice declares
a pitch of knowledge,
expresses
your life's music,
provides the ground bass
for other voices.
In close-up,
daemonically hairy,
you are a transformer,
part of the bedrock of things.