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PIECE OF COAL
The piece of coal that wanted to be diamond
said to the earth: Press me.
The succulent grape that wanted to be wine
said to the feet: Crush me.
The cloud that wanted to be thunder and rain
said to a facing cloud: Collide with
me.
The mountain that wanted to be level valley
said to the elements: Erode me.
The oyster that wanted to produce a pearl
said to a sand-grain: Irritate me.
The heart that wanted to be filled with light
said to the world: Break me.
So what's the surprise
at the onslaught, the relentless
avalanche after avalanche of rose petals
in the form of insurance payments,
natural disasters, arthritis,
heart trouble and death?
Rose petals big as houses
propelling through the air at us
like the shields of Hussars
which leave us flat on the battlefield dazed,
but then they assume their
rose petal shapes again
piled in drifts around our
prostrate bodies, so that if our
prostrate bodies are taken away there'll be
the perfect outlines of the absolute
blessings that have
showered upon us
like the chalk outlines of forensic
destiny
O our lives cry out to be pressed to
diamond, call out to be
crushed to wine, sing out to be made to
fall as merciful rain all around us,
our mountains cry out to be worn down
to passable valleys
so we can fill those valleys
with heart's light
for other travelers
to see by.
2/12
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THE BLIND BEEKEEPER
for Musa Muhayiuddeen
1
I'd like to make a movie entitled
"The Blind Beekeeper." Alphonse,
or it could be Henry, blinded by sparks from a
forge when a teenager on his family farm
circa 1943, walks like a man on the moon
(funny how the phrase "man in the moon"
predated the historical event probably by
centuries) toward his
white
wooden bee sanctuaries,
he's wearing no protective suit or headdress,
knows the mental workings of bees,
can call them individually by
name, they swarm onto him, if
that's the right term,
they
cover his torso, stripped as he is to the waist,
his face wreathed in smiles,
and he does the dance of the bee with
bees all over him, like a bee pin cushion,
this man against a green field on a
sunny Kansas afternoon, the
camera rises in a
spectacular crane shot of Henry
shrinking smaller and
smaller, black
with
bees, calling each one by name, his
voice on the sound track, each time he
repeats a new name, there's an increased
buzz response, the music of the
soundtrack is a single violin note,
the sun's beating down, suddenly there's a
flash of light
and in the place of Henry and his bees
there's a large jar of honey, almost white,
as if from Paradise, glowing like a
pot of gold.
All of this could take place before the
credits.
Now the story begins.
2
We are taken into the bee's world.
Zarzz (all the bees have names starting with
"Z") has progressive ideas,
he's been to France, feels independent,
wants to revolutionize the bees'
lives, thinks about
breaking out of the routine and
starting his own hive, saves up
pollen secretly in some abandoned
hexagons in a nearby field,
is in love with Zuzz, wants to
make her his queen.
Zarzz, although commendable on
one level for being a
bee who wants to make a difference,
doesn't appreciate the divine pattern involved
in being a bee. That there's only
so far you can go before you
betray beedom, or, potentially tragic in this case,
build, not so much castles in the air, as
hives in hell. But his
intentions start out as good.
He's in love, he has some thoughts on
improving the lot of bees, but his
radical ideas might ruin this
hive forever!
Enter the blind beekeeper, He wants to
learn the higher metaphysics of
bees, to touch with the
knowledge of his heart the
geometric perfection of the bee, its
almost symbolically ritualistic sets of
patterns, building patterns, dance
patterns, whose results are
deep medicine for man, prophetically
ordained, and
the continuation of the species. The
flash he experienced that
blinded him he wants to
reproduce in the realm of spiritual
illumination.
Meanwhile Zarzz and Zuzz leave the
hive in search of
greener pastures. They
pack up their
legs with pollen, and head out after
sunset. But bees don't
fly after dark. They get lost.
They fly into foreign fields. They get
cold, which is
fatal for the
flying mechanism
of bees, who
have to keep themselves warm by whirring their
wings. Their story gets quite sad, actually,
and Zarzz suddenly realizes he may have
doomed both their lives to
extinction. Being a
thoughtful bee, he is wracked with
guilt and worry, and
starts to pray, for bees are believers,
as attested to by the beginning of that
word, and have a
beeline to the Divine Reality Who
gave them their wisdom.
3
Zarzz: Zee zuzz za za-za-za
zarzi zuzzo zab zuzzo
zizz za za-za zarzo zoo.
Zuzz: Zarzi zaz zaz zo-zo-zo-zo-zo
ziz zar zuzzo zizz zo zo za-za
zazizzo zazizzo.
Zarzz: Zazo zizo zizz?
Zuzz: Zazo zinzinzup zardo-do zinzanzo
zar zar.
Zarzz: Zee Zuzz, za zwa zi za zo.
4
But the beekeeper is also in love, and he
also wants to build hexagons of
perfection and a palace of
pure sweetness.
Her name is Rosa, a poor girl from a
foreign country, and Henry is
her strength and she is his eyes.
But here is the strange part: as Henry
works with the bees, and talks to
them in their language,
he starts seeing them, visually
seeing each one of them. When he's away from their
hive he's blind, but when he faces the
hive he's an alchemist achieving pure gold.
He comes to the hive in the morning.
The hive is in an uproar. He sees them in
clusters talking about Zarzz and Zuzz.
The queen is laying her eggs. The
nurses are taking them to the nursery.
At the center of the hive everything is
going on as normal. But out in the
streets the bees are literally abuzz.
"What will we do? What have they
gone and done? Where could they
have gone? How can we get them back?"
The blind beekeeper looks into the hive
and sees all this. But suddenly he has
double sight. He sees Zarzz and Zuzz
nearly frozen to death, trying to
sun themselves enough to fly. They are
in a field a few miles away
bounded by meadow flowers.
There's no time to lose! The beekeeper
calls to the bees. Their round shiny
multiple eyes all turn to him.
He dances. He dances the dance of
the map to the field they're in.
He turns in circles to indicate miles. He faces
in their direction. He tilts
his arms to show the longitude and
latitude of their
position.
Now he calls each one by name to
go to them, to bring them back: "Go
Zuza, Zee, Zan, Zy,
Zarzo, Zeeza, Zanzan, Zink,
go Zeno, Zardoz, Zo, Zooey,
Zap, Zeeper, Zazoo, Zip,
go Zeezee, Zantham, Zoetrope, Zany,
Zeke, Zap, Zazz, Zoe,
Zanzinzo, Zoonzinzan, Zeezay, Zope,
go Zaza, Zipe! They buzz their response!
Go Zak, z-z-z-z, Zook, z-z-z-z,
Zipper, z-z-z-z, Zay!
They lift from the hive like an ecstatic
cloud, they buzz like chainsaws
and off they zoom. The blind
beekeeper smiles and waves them
on. Does the story end
happily?
They all burst into song!
5
Zarzz and Zuzz come back to the hive.
Everyone's glad they're still alive.
The queen makes Zarzz her intimate vizier.
Zuzz marries Zarzz and gets busier and busier.
.
The blind beekeeper makes lots of money
selling their extraordinary honey
and marries Rosa in a flash of light
so utterly intense he regains his sight.
2/2
(note: the little story that goes along with this poem is as follows:
We were at a friend’s house after a day of fasting in Ramadan
[the dedicatee’s] and I asked for honey for my tea. He took
me to his kitchen and brought out a square jar of honey, biggish
but not that big, of white, spun honey, paradisiacal to the taste.
But for my tea he gave me a honey bear. That night I woke up four
times and wrote this poem. In the morning, excited, I called him
and he answered from his car phone on the road to Atlantic City.
I read him the poem, and he said, “You won’t believe
this, but in front of me is a car with a license plate that reads
“O Honey!” When he returned home to Philadelphia he
called me and said that the jar of honey I had tasted he’d
bought in Mecca for about $300.00, very rare wildflower honey, from
Yemen. I later found out that the Yemen is famous for its exquisite
honey.)
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