Well Candice
I get on only in the early morning, but I 'met' Douglas via a trade of
books & his interesting interventions in some lists, including this one
earlier, & was most impressed, so will try...
>
>THE SACRAMENT AS CHARM
>
>When she lifted the hive she discovered
>a chapel made by the bees from honeycombs.
>The windows, walls, roof and tower
>all stood exact in golden miniature.
>When she opened the little door she saw
>that inside they had set up an altar
>for the communion which, to cure them
>of a plague, she had hid in their hive.
>
>--Randolph Healy
>
>
>ANGLO-SAXON CHARM FOR A SWARM OF BEES
>
>Take up earth in your right hand,
>cast it under your right foot,
>and say:
>
>I catch it under foot, I have found it.
>Look! Earth has power against all creatures,
>against malice and against neglect,
>and against the mighty tongue of man.
>
>Then cast sand over them, when they swarm,
>and say:
>
>Settle down, victory-women, down to earth!
>Never be wild or fly into the woods.
>Always be as mindful of my good
>as any man be of hearth and home.
>
>--trans. Candice Ward
POLITE TO BEES
Even as she wakes she is being lowered into the tub by the hovering bees, a
tub filled with honey.
Honey gloriously warm, like sunlight through her eyelids. Honey slow to
close around her nakedness, and seal her limbs from any act of will.
She opens her eyes, or tries to.
Immersed, neck to toe, with effort she lifts one arm; lifts a curtain of
honey, a sheer wing -- which soon tatters, tearing holes in itself, the
remnants dripping from her arm,
She lifts her other arm, lifts another wing of honey, as if she might
fly, might try -- without giving offence -- to get up.
Diana Hartog.
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
But the dead are wholehearted about being dead,
no half measures no shilly-shallying:
they're committed, dedicated
to purposelessness.
Al Purdy
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