Honey - A Poem by Diana Levy

HONEY

It was a honey time there in the valley

with the women, spiked with frost and stars--

my whole body felt like a smile

as I supped it like a winter bee

and was nourished and healed--

we were all Queens, fattening our hearts

Afterwards, still on that fertile edge

between one soul-system and another,

I had to do the shopping. I gathered up

my bags, but at the supermarket I dropped

the coastal gum honey in its glass jar

on the hard floor and it shatters-- the current of shoppers sweep around my crisis

in a 4 o'clock haste, as I view the bag of groceries

stuck with honey and razor-sharp glass

oozing into the aisles--

the floor has no use for such sweetness--

The trolleys, neat jars of Vegemite

stacks of SPECIAL's--I wish

it would all burst into laughter

at this splendid small tragedy--

feeling boxed back in

I drove home and there learn

that you have died:

your honey all spilled in heart attack.

I'm cleaning up with tears now

as I remember you in an old blue muu-muu,

shopping bag in hand as you

step from the threshold into the street,

your white hair coiled in a low braided bun

maybe a lei of plumeria around your neck

your wise clear eyes and

always that nectar smile

which greeted every being

and every smashed jar.

Diana Levy

What Book?!: A Collection of Zen Poetry from Beat to Hip Hop

edited by Gary Ginsberg

posted 2003.09.28

updated 2003.09.28

pau