This is a poem by Sylvia Plath, written in 1962, 'The Arrival of the Bee Box.'
It has imagery that resonates (at least for me personally) with the people's demonstrations in the Middle East and hopefully their eventual freedom from autocratic rule. Just not the god bit at the end, that sounds too much like US policy.
I was reminded of this a few years ago. when a neighbor of ours, who have a farm, mentioned going to the post office to pick up a queen bee.
Hardly a literary scholar or deep thinker of any consequence, I don't and won't expound on meaning or allusion of any verse I like. I agree with Archibald Macleish that 'A poem should not mean/But be'.
I started with posting poetry yesterday , and caught a few eyeballs. I just want to share some things I like and that might have some tangential relevance to world events. Thanks for reading.
Sylvia Plath - The Arrival Of The Bee Box
I ordered this, clean wood box
Square as a chair and almost too heavy to lift.
I would say it was the coffin of a midget
Or a square baby
Were there not such a din in it.
The box is locked, it is dangerous.
I have to live with it overnight
And I can't keep away from it.
There are no windows, so I can't see what is in there.
There is only a little grid, no exit.
I put my eye to the grid.
It is dark, dark,
With the swarmy feeling of African hands
Minute and shrunk for export,
Black on black, angrily clambering.
How can I let them out?
It is the noise that appalls me most of all,
The unintelligible syllables.
It is like a Roman mob,
Small, taken one by one, but my god, together!
I lay my ear to furious Latin.
I am not a Caesar.
I have simply ordered a box of maniacs.
They can be sent back.
They can die, I need feed them nothing, I am the owner.
I wonder how hungry they are.
I wonder if they would forget me
If I just undid the locks and stood back and turned into a tree.
There is the laburnum, its blond colonnades,
And the petticoats of the cherry.
They might ignore me immediately
In my moon suit and funeral veil.
I am no source of honey
So why should they turn on me?
Tomorrow I will be sweet God, I will set them free.
The box is only temporary.