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Abhainn an Ghlinn Deirg / River of the Red Glen
John Kennedy raised bees along the side of this river
in a spot hidden by fuchsia bushes
not far from the road on the Russell plot.
No one walking along the road would think
“I bet that dark bend in the river
has a hive buzzing with tireless worker bees,
a queen bee swollen with generations waiting their turn,
a civilization constructing itself, relatively at peace until disturbed,
although probably at bee-war against other hives.”
It’s not a common thought unless you are a beekeeper.
I think—and this is probably a moral judgment on my part—
most people are afraid of bees and don’t seek them out.
I used to have the same fear,
but many years ago, I was lying on the grass, reading a book,
and fell asleep.
I was awakened by a tickling feeling on my big toe.
A bee had landed there,
moving its legs the way bees do to gather pollen.
Tough luck bee, I thought.
I didn’t brush it off because I was groggy and it amused me
and because I was surprised at how cold bee feet felt.
I lost my fear of bees right then and there.
And I apologize to beekeepers everywhere for saying this,
but I think bees in honeycomb shelves
look like hot buttered popcorn
when you’re rushing to pay before the movie starts.
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Ed Barrett is the author of ten books of poetry, most recently The Leaves Are Something This Year: New and Selected Prose Poems (2023, Quale Press). He was born in Brooklyn, NY, and educated at Brooklyn College and Harvard, where he studied English literature, Greek, and Irish. His family home is in Dunquin, Co. Kerry, Ireland. He resides in Cambridge, MA, where he is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at MIT.
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