The handfuls of dead bees
she finds after the spraying
are not the worst part
for the beekeeper.
It’s the bees still struggling
that gets to her. Limping
in a circle like someone
who’s been spinning
on a tire swing for too long,
who then stands––dizzy,
nauseous, stunned.
Their wings shudder,
but they cannot fly.
These insects whose bodies
know the rhythm
of the blossoms,
the changing angles
of the sun, whose alchemy
gives us liquid gold,
whose love affairs
with pistils and stamens
give us apricots,
almonds, melons.
To witness is to be
dredged, she thinks.
What war do we think
we’re winning?
—
Heather Swan is a poet and nonfiction writer. Her most recent collection of poems, Dandelion, was released from Terrapin Books in 2023. Her first book, A Kinship with Ash (Terrapin Books), published in 2020, was a finalist for both the ASLE Book Award and the Julie Suk Award. Her nonfiction book Where Honeybees Thrive (Penn State Press) won the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award. A companion book, Where the Grass Still Sings: Stories of Insects and Interconnection, was just released in May 2024. She has been the recipient of the August Derleth Poetry Award, the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Best Chapbook Award, the Wisconsin Center for the Book Bookmark Award, the Martha Meyer Renk Fellowship in Poetry at UW Madison, and an Illinois Arts Council Poetry Fellowship Award. She teaches environmental literature and writing at UW Madison.
