Allied with the Bees

These people have been living in these areas for all their life but they have never heard or experienced something like this before. Bees and honey are part of their life; they and their ancestors have traded honey for salt, clothes, and other goods for hundreds of years.
– Letter to the Editor by S. Yang, Long Beach, April 6, 1984

Tell them, child, we have hiked
These hills without shoes, long
Enough to hunt alongside the bees,

Memorizing the bend, pulse
Of their voices when they
Go dream inside the trees.

We have been crowned with
Syrup of their toils so that our
Syntax might awaken to know

Its full range, compassed to
The North, pristine as a nomadic
Butterfly. Tell them, daughter,

We watched as they buried their
Queen, folding her into cashmere
Of her wings before swarming

The body toward a fire of stars.
And for days, the forest keened
A shadow lullaby. And for nights,

We listened for the bees only
To uncover the hurried hush of our
Own stranded feet, falling forgotten

As collateral beings. Tell them,
Me ntxhais, we are not misled in
Our anguish, what happened

To the bees also happened to us.