“The Fête du Miel” by Beverly Bie Brahic (poetry, ’06)

An excerpt from “The Fête du Miel” by Beverly Bie Brahic (poetry, ’06), from her collection, The Hotel Eden, and published by Carcanet:

The Fête du Miel

When summer is over, the beekeepers
Sell their excess honey to the neighbours.

Is it the mythic precincts that gives
Its savour to the honey from these hives?

Or is it the pollution? Wishful thinking
The walls of our Garden. Blackbirds sing,

Bees suck where they will – on dog-pissed street trees
Exhaust-fuelled geraniums and ivies,

As on the blossoms of an apple tree
Coddled by a Carthusian in a monastery.

Last winter was so warm the bees thought
Summer never ended, the beekeepers write

On notices posted round the hives. ‘All winter
The bees were out foraging for nectar.

 

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