From the book: In the Summer of Cancer ~ Poems by John Sokol
Kissing the Bees
It's August, and out my back window
I can see a little girl - seven maybe -
kissing bees, in her mother's garden.
She laughs wildly after every kiss;
after every kiss she licks her lips
and wipes them on her wrist.
Her mother calls out from the
kitchen window: "Kathleen Elizabeth!
I'm not telling you again! Stop kissing
those bees! You're gonna get stung!"
Kathleen Elizabeth pouts and stares
wantonly at her bees in the blossoms.
She seems enthralled by the buzzing
throng. I wonder if she knows
that, in Brittany, generations believed
the tears Christ shed on the cross
turned into bees, that according
to Mohammed the bee is the only
creature that God ever spoke to directly,
that according to Herodotus, kings
of Scythia were buried in beeswax.
Maybe she was once chosen,
having lived a former life
in the Far East, where bees are believed
to impart eloquence to a child
of their choice. Maybe she intuits,
somehow, that when Plato, Sophocles,
and Xenophon were infants, bees
alighted on their mouths. She must
know something, because, now,
she is singing to the bees, as people
in England used to do, to keep their bees
at home and happy. And, now, I can hear
the thoughts that incite her desire,
that arrive on the breeze, as the whole
luminous day around her -
and around me - seems to whisper:
"Kiss the bees! Kiss the bees!"
John Sokol is my friend. We attended high school and college together. He is a writer and painter living in Akron, Ohio. His poems have appeared in America, Antigonish Review, The Berkeley Poetry Review, Georgetown Review, New Millennium Writings, The New York Quarterly, and Quarterly West, among others. His short stories have appeared in Akros, Descant, Mindscapes, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Redbook, and other journals. His drawings and paintings are included in many public and private collections.
This is just one of the 55 great poems in his book which I have copies available for $15. If interested, please leave a comment.
She laughs wildly after every kiss;
after every kiss she licks her lips
and wipes them on her wrist.
Her mother calls out from the
kitchen window: "Kathleen Elizabeth!
I'm not telling you again! Stop kissing
those bees! You're gonna get stung!"
Kathleen Elizabeth pouts and stares
wantonly at her bees in the blossoms.
She seems enthralled by the buzzing
throng. I wonder if she knows
that, in Brittany, generations believed
the tears Christ shed on the cross
turned into bees, that according
to Mohammed the bee is the only
creature that God ever spoke to directly,
that according to Herodotus, kings
of Scythia were buried in beeswax.
Maybe she was once chosen,
having lived a former life
in the Far East, where bees are believed
to impart eloquence to a child
of their choice. Maybe she intuits,
somehow, that when Plato, Sophocles,
and Xenophon were infants, bees
alighted on their mouths. She must
know something, because, now,
she is singing to the bees, as people
in England used to do, to keep their bees
at home and happy. And, now, I can hear
the thoughts that incite her desire,
that arrive on the breeze, as the whole
luminous day around her -
and around me - seems to whisper:
"Kiss the bees! Kiss the bees!"
John Sokol is my friend. We attended high school and college together. He is a writer and painter living in Akron, Ohio. His poems have appeared in America, Antigonish Review, The Berkeley Poetry Review, Georgetown Review, New Millennium Writings, The New York Quarterly, and Quarterly West, among others. His short stories have appeared in Akros, Descant, Mindscapes, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Redbook, and other journals. His drawings and paintings are included in many public and private collections.
This is just one of the 55 great poems in his book which I have copies available for $15. If interested, please leave a comment.
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