Sometimes, I think I Should Blog About Weightier Matters

But, my new house is full of dead bees. On the floor, like little balls of thread or lint, seeming innocuous until I look closely. And I have to force myself to pick them up because what if they're just playing dead in order to sting me? And they must be coming from somewhere... what doors have I not opened yet? Perhaps they're hiding in the washing machine or the cabinet over the stove that's too high for me to reach?

My not sure why bees bother me so. The last time I was stung by a bee I was 13, and it really wasn't that bad (I believe I used it as an excuse to get out of whatever tedious gym-class activity we were engaged in at the time), yet I'm still terrified. No doubt the movie My Girl is somewhat to blame, and my loathing of bugs in general. Also, when I was a small child we went to a nature preserve which featured a beehive that had one wall of clear plastic, so you could see them all inside, buzzing around, crawling all over each other. My father assured me they couldn't get out and picked me up for a closer look... but once up there I saw that the top of the hive was open and the bees were free to fly in and out as they pleased. All the way home I was convinced there were bees in my hair.

Yet at the same time, I'm often attracted to fictional characters with an affinity for bees; Idgie (of Fried Green Tomatoes), Chuck (of Pushing Daisies), and of course the dogs with bees in their mouths.

Anyway, here is a Sunday Poem about bees:

The Arrival of the Bee Box
Sylvia Plath

I ordered this, clean wood box
Square as a chair and almost too heavy to lift.
I would say it was the coffin of a midget
Or a square baby
Were there not such a din in it.

The box is locked, it is dangerous.
I have to live with it overnight
And I can't keep away from it.
There are no windows, so I can't see what is in there.
There is only a little grid, no exit.

I put my eye to the grid.
It is dark, dark,
With the swarmy feeling of African hands
Minute and shrunk for export,
Black on black, angrily clambering.

How can I let them out?
It is the noise that appalls me most of all,
The unintelligible syllables.
It is like a Roman mob,
Small, taken one by one, but my god, together!

I lay my ear to furious Latin.
I am not a Caesar.
I have simply ordered a box of maniacs.
They can be sent back.
They can die, I need feed them nothing, I am the owner.

I wonder how hungry they are.
I wonder if they would forget me
If I just undid the locks and stood back and turned into a tree.
There is the laburnum, its blond colonnades,
And the petticoats of the cherry.

They might ignore me immediately
In my moon suit and funeral veil.
I am no source of honey
So why should they turn on me?
Tomorrow I will be sweet God, I will set them free.

The box is only temporary.