night sky with exit wounds barnes and noble

Wept, too, for the queenless swarm and the fallen queens.Ĭapturing the tragedy of 20 beehives set ablaze by vandals with “too much time too free on cruel hands” and the anguished beekeeper’s resulting death, “Afterswarm” evokes both rage and grief. Who roughed you with his honeyed hands, and was late to loving you. My face turned down and away, while you wept for the man Vibrating backs of his bees, humming along with them as heĬould not with you, that night we sat in the cab of the old pickup, The night your father died, having flown through this life on the The floating brood frame in the pond, stunned bees still caring for the brood. His head, you said, howled like a torn beast for his incinerated queens.Īnd as you sprayed the firestorm, he fell to his knees and broke to see Stinging the only hands they loved or knew. Your father’sįlashlight shook in his hand as the dazed survivors swarmed it, Toppled while they slept by the rage of unknowns. Too much time too free on cruel hands, colonies kicked and hurled, Six hundred thousand bees felled by a stranger’s matches, His only son, but you were too late to stop When he saw the flames he’d called you, as he seldom did,

Your truck bed full of shattered, scarred frames,

You arrived on my front porch, reeking of honeyed smoke, The day your father died, face down in his hives,

Night sky with exit wounds barnes and noble