The Whole Motion: Collected Poems, 1945–1992

The Bee

That it will hover, made purely ofnorthern Lights, at dusk and fall On men building roads: will perch On the moose's horn like a falcon Riding into battle into holy war against Screaming railroad crews: will pull Whole traplines like fibres from the snow In the long-jawed night offur trappers. But, small, filthy, unwinged, You will soon be crouching Alone, with maybe some dim racial notion Ofbeing the last, but none ofhow much Your unnoticed going will mean: How much the timid poem needs The mindless explosion ofyour rage, The glutton's internal fire the elk's Heart in the belly, sprouting wings, The pact ofthe "blind swallowing Thing," with himself, to eat The world, and not to be driven offit Until it is gone, even ifit takes Forever. I take you as you are And make ofyou what I will, Skunk-bear, carcajou, bloodthirsty Non-survivor. Lord) let me die but not die Out. The Bee To the football coaches ofClemson College, 1942 One dot Grainily shifting we at roadside and The Bee / 275 The smallest wings coming along the rail fence out Ofthe woods one dot of all that green. It now Becomes flesh-crawling then the quite still Ofstinging. I must live faster for my terrified Small son it is on him. Has come. Clings. Old wingback, come To life. Ifyour knee action is high Enough, the fat may fall in time God damn You, Dickey, dig this is your last time to cut And run but you must give it everything you have Left, for screaming near your screaming child is the sheer Murder ofCalifornia traffic: some .bee hangs driving Your child Blindly onto the highway. Get there however Is still possible. Long live what I badly did At Clemson and all ofmy clumsiest drives For the ball all ofmy trying to turn The corner downfield and my spindling explosions Through the five-hole over tackle. 0 backfield Coach Shag Norton, Tell me as you never yet have told me To get the lead out scream whatever will get The slow-motion ofmiddle age offme I cannot Make it this way I will have to leave My feet they are gone I have him where He lives and down we go singing with screams into The dirt, Son-screams offathers screams ofdead coaches turning To approval and from between us the bee rises screaming With flight grainily shifting riding the rail fence Back into the woods traffic blasting past us Unchanged, nothing heard through the airconditioning glass we lying at roadside full Ofthe forearm prints Ofroadrocks strawberries on our elbows as from Scrimmage with the varsity now we can get Up stand turn away from the highway look straight Into trees. See, there is nothing coming out no Falling) May Day Sermon) and Other Poems / 276 Smallest wing no shift ofa flight-grain nothing Nothing. Let us go in, son, and listen For some tobaccomumbling voice in the branches to say "That's a little better," to our lives still hanging By a hair. There is nothing to stop us we can go Deep deeper into elms, and listen to traffic die Roaring, like a football crowd from which we have Vanished. Dead coaches live in the air, son live In the ear Like fathers, and u1'l!e and u1'l!e. They want you better Than you are. When needed, they rise and curse you they scream When something must be saved. Here, under this tree, We can sit down. You can sleep, and I can try To give back what I have earned by keeping us Alive, and safe from bees: the smile ofsome kind OfsaviorOftouchdowns , offumbles, battles, Lives. Let me sit here with you, son As on the bench, while the first string takes back Over, far away and say with my silentest tongue, with the mancreating bruises ofmy arms with a live leafa quick Dead hand on my shoulder, "Coach Norton, I am your boy." Mary Sheffield Forever at war news I am thinking there nearly naked low green ofwater hard overflowed forms water sits running quietly carving red rocks forcing white from the current parts ofmidstream join I sit with one hand joining the other hand shyly fine sand under still feet and Mary Sheffield singing passed-through Mary Sheffield / 277 ...