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SCRAPING THE HONEY JAR
And your Lord inspired the bees:
"Make houses in the mountains, in the trees
and in what men construct!
Feed on every kind of fruit,
and travel the well-trod paths of your Lord!"
A drink of varying colors comes from their bellies.
In it is medicine for mankind.
In this is a sign
for people who reflect.
--
Qur'an: 16/70
Scraping the bottom of the honey jar with a spoon
I suddenly feel I've got to
get every last drop of
honey
because it just might be the one
from that extra long flight to that extra-special flower,
one tiny spoonful of bee-syrup from the
bottom of the jar might even be from the
Night-Blooming Jasmine, the rare black
Catalina Calla lily, the
Flugel Fruited Flute Rose that
puts out petals like zebra tongues on which a bee
alights to her peril, but she
doesn't care,
she wobbles
deep in, already
off-balance
with pollen, goes completely forward until she's
blinded in a dome of glowing red,
feathery tongue ecstatically flickering
and
legs getting stickier
with the pistil's golden puff.
Now she's totally drunk, she struggles out and
buzzes off dizzily into the air
back to the hive, but makes an inspired
detour across white
Matilija
poppies, frail petals waving like
shirts
on a clothesline--she
flings herself into a giant Hieroglyphic Hibiscus
whose walls are
purplish dark with straightbacked figures
marching to the
Chamber of Mysteries--
a liquid dot, one sip of which will
put us out of all
human misery forever, is daubed on
an
altar of pearl to be licked
and
savored.
The happy bee
dips her proboscis, twitches her
legs, flies out the
trumpeted opening again into lavender twilight,
enters the hive,
and into
perfect hexagons pure honey flows, and into the
jar in my hands also where my
late-night spoon-scrapes against glass sides
don't want to miss
even one last drop of essential nectar so
possibly the exact taste from the Throne
of God's
Majesty that will
illuminate us home!
8/1
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HADES
My life shifted in the middle of the night
and when I woke up I found myself in
Hades. It looked like the south, very tropical,
trés tropique,
storks and loud noises,
decrees nailed to trees, huge flaking whitewashed riverboats,
Dixie Land bands
playing waltzes on the main decks,
people
in dinner dress, skin like parchment,
and me feeling totally out of place.
I rubbed my eyes, but it did no good, I was in
Hades. Cars went by with scorched license plates:
"Hades." Well,
you can't complain about everything,
but I prayed right away, right where I stood,
right on my knees: "Lord, take me outta' Hades, if I've
ever asked for anything, before I
catch fire!" Because the
people looked like they enjoyed themselves, it was
all right with
them to
be in Hades. I didn't want to
wait till then, my face to look
pleased. I prayed some more, and the
good Lord
took me out, and set me down in
Philadelphia!
2/21
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THE MASTER
The Master left his hat out in the rain
and in the morning it was filled with golden
carp who
swam upstream to spawn in
crater
lakes roofed by
white
sky.
He left his raincoat standing like a stiff grass tent.
Now the snake family coils around each other inside its
conical shade, as well as 3 new eggs.
His sandals sit side by side by the stones leading to the
fresh water well.
A slug leaves its lacework of slime across their
grasswork of thongs.
There was a reflection of his face on the lake once when he
happened to look down.
Now it's gone.
What did the Master leave us?
Hat, coat, shoes.
Lake.
3/5
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