The Bees

Carol Ann Duffy

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I Gillian Clarke,

Bardd Cenedlaethol Cymru,

Mam-gu anrhydeddus ac arbennig Ella

a’m ffrind annwyl i.

Bees

Here are my bees,

brazen, blurs on paper,

besotted; buzzwords, dancing

their flawless, airy maps.

Been deep, my poet bees,

in the parts of flowers,

in daffodil, thistle, rose, even

the golden lotus; so glide,

gilded, glad, golden, thus –

wise – and know of us:

how your scent pervades

my shadowed, busy heart,

and honey is art.

Last Post

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin

that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud …

but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood

run upwards from the slime into its wounds;

see lines and lines of British boys rewind

back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home –

mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers

not entering the story now

to die and die and die.

Dulce – No – Decorum – No – Pro patria mori.

You walk away.

You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)

like all your mates do too –

Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert –

and light a cigarette.

There’s coffee in the square,

warm French bread,

and all those thousands dead

are shaking dried mud from their hair

and queueing up for home. Freshly alive,

a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released

from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.

You lean against a wall,

your several million lives still possible

and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.

You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.

If poetry could truly tell it backwards,

then it would.

Echo

I think I was searching for treasures or stones

in the clearest of pools

when your face …

when your face,

like the moon in a well

where I might wish …

might well wish

for the iced fire of your kiss;

only on water my lips, where your face …

where your face was reflected, lovely,

not really there when I turned

to look behind at the emptying air …