Day 12: Honey, Honey

Sometimes what a poem is solely is a reminder of an essential truth. And in this poem 'Joy', it's the simple fact that life is sweet. La vie est belle.

Using bees and honey as subject matter and metaphor, it works perfectly. Indeed, who could need more proof than honey to know what life is? And who could know that a few simple words arranged on a page could teem with such joy and truth?

I love this poem. I keep a copy of it pinned up within range for a shot of sweetness when it's needed most. It's a joy to read. And a firm example of how poetry is not all serious and doom and gloomy.

Enjoy!

Joy - Julie Cadwallader Staub

Who could need more proof than honey—

How the bees with such skill and purpose
enter flower after flower
sing their way home
to create and cap the new honey
just to get through the flowerless winter.

And how the bear with intention and cunning
raids the hive
shovels pawful after pawful into his happy mouth
bats away indignant bees
stumbles off in a stupor of satiation and stickiness.

And how we humans can't resist its viscosity
its taste of clover and wind
its metaphorical power:
don't we yearn for a land of milk and honey?
don't we call our loved ones "honey?"

all because bees just do, over and over again, what they were made to

do.

Oh, who could need more proof than honey
to know that our world
was meant to be

and

was meant to be
sweet?