Sting

Those gaunt hands that collect honey

Know well of the musical hum and the

Unforgiving sting. Alone in the woods

At dawn he searches for a bee's haven.

He knows well the rise and fall of

Beauty. The amber hue of the heavenly

Sap, the mesmerising buzz of the little

Bee-

But, sometimes though never too often

The sting cuts through all of that and

Whats left is the pain and the fiery burn.

A token, a price he does pay in the woods

To collect that nurturing sap every day,

Alone in the woods. The haze of the mist,

The fear of being lonesome and of course

A thousand stinging buzz.

Between that and now though, he is unpinned,

Chained in a two by four hut of his own making.

Imposing, lonely and engulfing where neither

The bees, the honey, the woods or the dawn

Decide to come by and keep him company, for

The bees are busy in their combs vomitting the

Drops and the rest dont care. That is when the

Sting stings...

Its true; every man of this profession gets stung

Often enough for them to accept it as their own.

But, what does one do when thousand scalds and a

Million stings are magnified by the time he has to 

Himself in that sullen hut of two by four? He melts,

Nay he vanishes within, lives within and waits without.

Now, that is a taste that we don't get when we gorge

Ogrishly on that freshly collected honey...

The taste of unintentional singularity that stings

All over and expands time and with it agony. And as

Time ceremoniously stretches itself just for a jest

The scalds dont heal and the stings dont numb.. Its

Just echoes in the two by four, the conundrum and

Concerto of the bee's hum!


© Malyaban Lahiri