Poem 198

Bees seasons preserved ice-men and bog bodies, this manages to include a few of my recurring themes …

… I like the delayed life-cycle here as a centuries-dead soldier emerges from the permafrost, thaws, rots and finally fulfils his role of giving rise to new life …

… I’m referencing winter conquering Napoleon’s troops on the retreat from Moscow but equally this goes all the way back to the Bronze Age and the sympathetic magic and sacrifice required to nudge winter into a season of rebirth and the season of war into peace …

… device has a double meaning – the small mechanism of pollination but also the bee was Napoleon’s personal emblem …

Spring

The bee Napoleon's intricate device
crackles between winter's glass fingers
the sun drifts in a cold river
like a spot of roe
the frozen man stupidly can't unstick himself from his sword
he wonders if he's supposed to war forever
leather flesh flapping and rattling
clumsy in the snow
between coral-black trees
     but the bee delivers itself sweetly to his shoulder
labours up the stringy neck
and in at one ear
the man goes to sleep still stupidly
spring comes out of his head like blood