the honeybees invade the nunnery

grief dishelves me my full existence
grief dishelves me every day
cobbled together — piece by ruin
cobbled and staid, piece and filament
radiating anyway

I am trying to tell you the coastline is receding
there is grief on the coastline
there is bereavement at sea
ride the ferry the full length and you’ll see

see its compressed distance — it expels the excess coast
all organs bear the load of our mired coasts
all frigatebirds do this ritual when lines recede
watch the frigatebird and see how it compensates
it beats its wings in a slow remembrance
it beats them long enough for the sound to fill us

the bird coasts against the demarcation but now
soars with a laden knowledge
a load is an assurance
for anything living
the load keeps us tethered, keeps us reaching —
breath by breath
plumage — gathered heap, little corners
take umbrage

I have raised my hands in the name of tradition
I have done it twice so now it’s my credence
I have done it three times so now it’s a burden
this, the fourth day, my era’s witness — burnished
nation state at the fifth rotation
I have raised the stakes an octave for the honeybees
to bear all their weight and the din of the wings

ride this has-been until the grid
disperses ride all its equine parts
leave the stable put the horse to rest
take six parts and cleave them equally
double down on familial duty
tranches act as covenant
note how the honeybees bear witness

grief, consistent across my organs
, neat restraint.
grief disperses me again — I expect it grief — across my organs
a fastened permission
then a willowing, now ovum I told you:
utility and sacrilege
and I will try to do
the rest

In
the
thick
of
all the
silences
(my winnowing bereavement)
a
consistent
amber
drone
gives us
permission
to be still

If I
hadn’t seen the sound
maybe it’s
twilight receding
but the sameness of the
drone
pulls me —
elemental

it grips I follow it
it grips what magnet

grief dishelves me but then there are honeybees
grief dishelves me every day
but I forgot it

cobbled together — piece by masonwork
tibia, thorax, femur, and reaching
radiating anyway

the honeybees approach the cloister
the honeybees case the convent
their hum drowns out the nuns’
supplications
the noise enters god as a fervent
directive and god
is alive and loves the edges of
his kingdom

the honeybees thrive in the nunnery —
they know only peripheries.
as a trinity they comment on riven faith

they protect their modesty from clavicle to ulna
by shielding all their bodies’ cavities
they protect their modesty with
their incandescence
and give what they will
they do and they can

on May 14
the honeybees invade the nunnery
they tag the walls
“H O N E Y B E E S were here /
we were too hungry”

when the honeybees convene we all take cover
within the cracks of the cloister
we bore new holes
to find a pittance of space
god will see us wherever we end
up
god will find us whatever comes of us
through fence demarcation
rough-hewn sightline god can
see us
cresting the border

the bees bear witness to the inhabitants’
missives
they read them as the word
from Psalms to just bless us
and the ferventbees the listlessbees
plant the prayers in the garden
let them live let them live
among such lands as they can

the monastic honeybees
bless the honey
they have learned to live
in simple terms
they have blessed the honey
as a prophylactic
against decadence and sweetness
and all they inhabit

the honeybees invade the convent
the honeybees want the nunnery
we know their hunger we’ve seen
it before but we try and hold fast
to the bees as strangers

the honeybees
insist they were here all along

we know the bees were
here it’s the fifth century of their
drone
any sound becomes pink noise
all distant oceans . listen
all calcified waters . hear them .
any inhabitant, stranger inheritance as rift
let the hive exude
its evidence
see how the light
grips it?

the hive is full of xy honeybees
humming dervishing
divining
that’s living
the honeybees harbor
their modesty
the honeybees
the tonalbees the tonalbees their din
curry the claustrophobia
b ea r witness
genuflect for better measure

like me,
honeybees will call anything
holy
by holy they mean that it
won’t resist a bee’s sweetness

try the bees
insist that they name
the cloistered
objects and collectively
they emit one word
for any object’s name
and the word stands
in for credence
for limit
for distance
for vacuum
for all
objects within the plane
for all objects that know
no limits

the honeybees
they vacate the garden
the workerbees sweep away all
their pollinating remnants
they have worked they are spent and
are loving
—— they are guileless

the bees vacate the garden
but they encase everything
in honey
it’s for the sake of history
we were here, that’s history
a residue — that’s what the bees left
which now acts as mired witness

may all deceased honeybees rest is peace

may all deceased honeybees emit a clear hum around the coast
may the bees gift us their incandescence before dying
as a final gift they supplant their wings in the garden
they do this and we have their wings — good remnants
which now acts as eyewitness, alight
which now is the migratory ‘I’

the garden becomes absolved and still
the amber glow quieted everything living
the nuns were in the backroom doing
their prayerful business
while the honeybees buzzed
about their heads
and the honeybees assumed
their position in the triumvirate

we assumed the bees had dispersed but
we didn’t really ask them
maybe they were at rest
we never really asked them
acquiences is a low din
we didn’t have to ask them
sightline is its own knowledge
longline of honeybees
longlive honey

nationstate full of bees
nationstate amberglow
all verdant peripheries

the nuns bustle about creating a low hum
their cheeks flush with acuity or
honey

the first nun lifts her veil for the honeybee
the bee settles into a damp spot at her neck
the bee hums and the nun is incandescent
convening with everything the bee
just made holy

more bees converge
the nun lets them in
the nun is exuberant is alive
for the living
the bees hum and sound
a low song at her nape and her god
is calmly watching near the wings
of the bees

the honey bees never called it an invasion
they called it storing their
goods
in the nunnery
they called it scaling the walls
that marked the passage
for god
and for decadence and
for all the ripe reasons

the bees lined up side by side
to pray inside the nunnery
the low hum accounted for
what the nuns wouldn’t do
and they wouldn’t do anything
that god hadn’t
blessed
so god shrouds everything in
one fell swoop

the honeybees buzzed about the nuns’ veils
this time the nuns lifted their garments
to show the bees everything:
their brokenness their crises
their sweetness the bees
the hive the hive
so restless with
honey

the nuns forego their shielding veils
for the sake of the honey
and if the honey touches anything
the anything is now holy
god transmutes and makes bread into
body and wine into blood
and bee into honey
and honey to nun

may god bless all honeybees
god is blessing all bees as we speak
god sits with their lone din
god is also inside it
god’s logic sits with all of us
that’s how he knows to bless the bees
and the bees the bees all missives
they pray all strangers all strangers
have cloistered between us

honeybees sequestered now honeybees disperse
their diaspora a growing field ,
their containment keeps them fervent
in the walls they bore little holes with their stingers
to look just beyond all forms of
containment

grief dishelves me not at this moment
I bore holes in the cloistered walls
that’s to direct my focus

&

I have seen how the bees live & I will live among the bees & the honeybees fill
any vacuous space &
I have seen how the bees live

objects cultivated in the garden

I am a compelling object
I am a complete object
I am a complicit object
I am castor oil, object
can be contoured object
I am a canteen, contained object
I canter, object
I crinkle, then fold
I crease an envelope
to tamp the mounting distance
to fasten a muted object to the
aleph, to the kingdom

I am a lasting litany
I once tried my hand at objection
I once tried my hand at

refusal as abstraction

I was on the straight and narrow
I was a propulsive happenstance
The swaddle kept me enclosed
I am a counterweight, then convergence
I am a lever a
pendulum, will
obfuscate anything
I am an anthem in mourning
I am a lasting litany
I once tried my hand at breathing
It became my second nature
It became my country
I bear no crosses
I am not mired
I am not muted
I am a minor constellation
Seen only from giving vantages
Avail myself only to
w a r m b l o o d e d countries

I tried to cross a border
My papers stamped still in mourning
My papers stamped forever marooned
My papers stamped look at how the light affixed

I once crossed a border
these liminal people were the same on both sides
spoke to the arbitrary nation, an object condition
everyone eating the same dishes
the abject missing of a mother
the same on both sides

I was once thinking I’d cross a border
got wrapped up in thought and ended up
already on the other side
these liminal people were just about the same on both sides
I once spoke of elasticity
as some kind of question
I once spoke of nightingale in the garden
as in light recedes then apportioned, meets you

I am a lasting litany
I water the objects in the garden

they are fulfilled and do their growing
they are full of breathing, for them it’s easy

I stay propulsive like a cantilever
like the double helix
its structure — hinged and ethereal
My papers stamped double this
My papers stamped with brackishness