Like liquid silk in golden eddies
the honey laps into my tin.
It won’t be hurried. We stand and talk.
Some desultory bees cruise in.
The hives are up around Talbingo
under the mountain: before too long,
when tracks dry out, he’ll need to get them
and bring them down to Jugiong.
Full. The throbbing throat of honey
is guillotined, but talk flows on –
bees and their moods, they get to know you,
move gently, peacefully –or run!
From bees to men. Tells of a neighbour
whose treacherous stab was sharp and great,
yet grieves, in sorrow more than anger,
gentleness breaks the barb of hate.
Surely through pores and lungs and fingers
honey has seeped into his soul,
and I think of Willy Yeats and Ireland
the grief and agony of his call
for the honey-bees to build in the hollow
where love lay dead from enmities,
and I think of a man whose life is travel
to find new blossom for his bees.