Spring

             Dana Levin          

1.

The sun, in shafts and spades.
Through the pine and birches, little breeze setting off
the leaves -
The leaves.
Their golden green increase.
Pollen to the air, its colonial dream
of a new imperium of trees -
Snap against the wrist-skin.
And then you press down on the tongue with your gloved thumb
to let the honey-bee show you the way.

2.

The dark tunnel paths from light to light.
Flay the face and scoop out the eyes - you'll see.

3.
Bees in a cloud round your hand.
Egg-herder, your smell
synonymous with treasure -
Shining a light at the back of the throat:
blowflies
in liquid pearls
the bees murder to eat -
And all at the lips and nose a yellow dust, pollen
they have
delivered -
You scrape it into a little sack.

4.

Ripple and snap.
Bend to the O of the rigored mouth - listen.
Plastic bags, like souls, caught in trees.

5.

What to harvest,
from the sloughed-off suits of the dead.
Like sea-shells cupping the ghost-tongue of the sea,
their black mouths speak -
You crouch to the hum with a bag and a blade. You
the god it sways.