The hive slept like Argus <br />its thousand eyes covered with bees. <br />The light as it fell through the neem tree <br />was a marine light, in which <br />yellow moths set sail <br />from one perforated shadow to another. <br />The hive was mystic, <br />a drugged mantra <br />with its dark syllables asleep. <br />As the afternoon wore on <br />the honey-thieves came <br />and smoked the bees out <br />and carved out a honey-laden <br />crescent for themselves <br />and left a lump of pocked wax behind. <br />The bees roamed the house, <br />too bewildered to sting the children. <br />At night they slept, clinging <br />to the tree fork, now scarred with burns. <br />Sparrows and squirrels, a bird <br />with a black crest and a red half-moon <br />for an eyelid bickered over <br />the waxed remains the next day. <br />Then with a drone of straining engines <br />the bees rose like a swarm of passions <br />from a dying heart, and left. <br /> <br />[From 'The Glass-Blower: Selected Poems']<br /><br />Keki Daruwalla<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/suddenly-the-tree/
