"Hive" by Troy's Work Table.
Sidewalk chalk wash, sidewalk chalk, chalk pastels, and charcoal pencil on 12" x 12" concrete board.
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"what we serve, preserve, avowed in Latin murmurs" and "alchemical, nectar-slurred, pollen-furred, / the world's mantra us, our blurry sound" —from "Hive" by Carol Ann Duffy, as found in The Bees
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"Hive" is one of the shorter poems in The Bees. It's a fractured sonnet of sorts. (Not all of the poems in this collection are about bees, but enough of the poems are that it is the predominant theme.)
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This poem is filled with a wonderful buzz of language—rhymes at the end of lines, rhymes within lines, vowel sounds that excite the eye and tongue, simple words joined into compound words, the use of f and h and m and v to give "breath" and "murmur" and "hum" to the poem.
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This poem is a reminder to me that we each have a place to be within community, that we are "concelebrants." It is a nice pause within a week of reading poems mostly focused on loss or questioning existence. It is a poem that affords one a space to sit and reflect on the joy of being alive.
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