Here is my poem 'the bees' that won the Hunter Writers' Centre Award tonight in the 2020 Newcastle Poetry Prize
You can read the poem here:
unfortunately, for some odd, reason, blogger keeps vanishing these bees... which is why I am now, for the third time, putting up a simplified post of them
(there were originally about 25 bee pics in here)
and
here is a video on facebook of me reading the poem
https://www.facebook.com/KitKelen/videos/10157895054473237
up
to hive the mazed wood
because a forest lost us
afoot, where no leaf falls
fresh green to twig
all on the wing and never a prayer
store summer from the flowers spilt
breathe the secret paths of air
in ways of season got beyond
hear rain from distance
and see it to the pond, this age
of spears stood lightly thrown
fresh on the face where fallen
it has our hills away
climbing to be forgotten
a flutter － can you come consider?
rise with an inch up sun
in among leaves, bright
to be all other-worlded here
their pollen to the clock waxed hands
I bring a magic door － see me
and paint the sunshone world for you
so crooked woods bend paths
and these new pages of the tree
were such a song
stood past the map
sweet summer in the branches yet
last bee in its dusk flight and vanish
having never been before
the track is not where it was
winds twisting out of recollection
someone is under, for a spell
and all around my wonder
let the scourge be sweet
names of the bees, shall we recite?
no, they are secret still
bees
spin like sparks
in their night of smoke, hoard the sun
they wear it in stripes, wear the dark
in the hour before the shadows come, still golden
bees have gathered the day to this end –
the light within the hive
telling them
secrets intimate, births, marriages
the goings and the comings home
but most of course the keeper’s death
like a rosary each blessing
they are of an afterworld, from
and through the mirror
knock on the hive and tell the tune
lift the lid, lean in
the bees must all be told
an Easter of their passion
call then the colour of lions
finding, getting bearing about
a winter of their warming
can you hear how they tell?
who will box the flight?
in leaf such a sky as they bring
woken, are the drift of toil to joy
see question marks for halo round
call us to other hidden things
in the dance we never see
bees are teaching again
they are calligraphers of heaven
with tracks of pointed fire, scribes set down the day
may we be minded, arc and tangent, climb empyrean,
melt wings to wax － no two turns same
show the moment for itself
such signatures they make away
we follow to find ourselves
the bees are a wheel
whoever worked the treetops
saw the unleafed sun
and knew the honeyed roundness
or else we might have dreamt
our flight among the flowers
flitting one to one
a hover and a hum
over the hay
on the threshing floor
how brief a flower, all?
bees live in a poem like this
sunstriped through shutters
a whiff away low, over the chaff
guess at the angle, gyre and climb
bees are an innocence passing
told always on alive, a hum
to the sugar in the bowl
in this afternoon, to tea
the workers
could be queen, each
because they went their Monday rounds
and made their ways where no bee was
out of the hive night nameless
who make pure the light
here they are far in the firstness again
and petal bound to tell the deeps
one and one more they bring
that is so the flower sings
that never was before
the hive is a store of labour
a system of shadows
take off and landing
endlessly from hollow rock
rank and file swarming
all golden, by the book
fates are offered, wheat kneaded with
and where they hive
it’s honey cakes for Cerberus
bind a cup with wreaths around
before Dionysus took wine
there was this libation
the elocution of the bees
tell on, and sweetly once bees spoke
before that though sang valour, loves
the bee-loud grove, the bean rows
hung in heads, alley long the roses
no honeyed words but hard fought
precious we are to hearts
how we are the tribe we are
we were so we will be
seasons are in the bees
the summer hive on fire
dog days camp outside
all angered as one insect, we
drowsy, dodge a raindrop
and if the winter queen should lay
then all of us may die
the spaceman and the smoking gun
here home in memory – the mindspeck
more than one star’s light shows
as pictured in the compound eye?
bringers of sunshine so, aliens among
all godlight in the littlest
door in the hive, figure moted in smoke
how far such craft are come!
make a hole in the page
who flies through?
the watercolour bees, those in oil, the macro
the wings are faster than the eye, and make a garden where they go
bees of the dream imagine us hived in the honey and no one at home
of tinsel lit, here are the angels unbibled
sting my enemy and die
I go to grace that way
come to the flower and kiss like this
keep it under your wings
time in the text
where the bees have gone, all are immortal
and best never knowing which way we are
how we came or where to go
the bees were a suitcase I set up
not wanted on the voyage
now in a cowslip’s bell I lie
you see the arrows after flight?
nun scribblers in their little cells
with all the words that ever were
they are making truth of light
that you may read it here
jolly bees all vanish into a book
prophetic till the last I think it is the holy madness
(satyrs clash cymbals, chase into a tree)
was a time this was the sweetest thing…
stone from the bounds of ocean creviced
ambrosia is brought they’re drunk on one or another
through dust, through weight of day, heroic
a book like this one you too are in and will we
come out ever at all to give the breeze its wings?
a wilderness wild guess towards
the place does not consist of hours
we follow other creatures to the forest in the garden
growl, flap, do the business, tear
no one has understood yet why is this crisis to be?
bees bring us to an oracle － they have the power of rain
abuzz
and even before the speaking sun
from nectar to proffer
with just a little meaning jig
lift from these waters, fly
the god of all is a visiting bee
a poppy bruised, meadow me
lay acres between
rye and the spring － all this propitious
stole, was stung and stings too
at the dripping comb － come lap
down
flit errant in amber arrested in a pond reflect
shone through the skin, for a mirror, look in
bumble and drone － a little bounce, buffet
see through the smoke till devil may
driven from time altogether, banking…
all our sweetness and all, often dimmed to riff
a kind of doom must be
in wings of where we trick the light
come at it out of the blue
to feed upon mere air
