The Human Bee

I became a human bee at twelve.

when they gave me my small wand,

my flask of pollen,

and I walked with the other bees

out to the orchards.

I worked first in apples,

climbed the ladder

into the childless arms of a tree

and busied myself, dipping and

tickling,

duping and tackling, tracing

the petal’s guidelines

down to the stigma.

Human, humming,

I knew my lessons by heart:

The ovary would become the fruit,

the ovule the seed,

fertilised by my golden touch,

my Midas dust.

I moved to pears,

head and shoulders

lost in blossom; dawn till dusk,

my delicate blessing.

All must be docile, kind. unfraught

for one fruit –

pomegranate, peach

nectarine, plum, the rhymeless

orange

And if an opening bud

was out of range,

I’d jump from my ladder onto a

branch

and reach.

So that was my working life as a bee,

till my eyesight blurred,

my hand was a trembling bird

in the leaves,

the bones of my fingers thinner than

wands.

And when they retired me,

I had my wine from the silent vines,

and I’d known love,

and I’d saved some money  –

but I could not fly and I made no

honey.

           - Carol Ann Duffy