Jean Toomer (#poem)

 

Beehive

Within this black hive to-night

There swarm a million bees;

Bees passing in and out the moon,

Bees escaping the moon,

Bees returning through the moon,

Silver bees intently buzzing,

Silver honey dripping from the swarm of bees

Earth is a waxen cell of the world comb,

And I, a drone,

Lying on my back,

Lipping honey,

Getting drunk with silver honey,

Wish that I might fly out past the moon

And curl forever in some far-off farmyard flower.

-Jean Toomer

This is from Cane, the first book, a novel, of Jean Toomer (1894-1967). It came out in 1923 and is told in a combination of poetry and prose. 

Toomer was the grandson of P. B. S. Pinchback, the first African-American governor of a U.S. state, Louisiana, in the 1870s.