The Silent Hive

Spring shouts her arrival
Yet in the deep, the  bees sleep
Heedless
Of the robbers in the barrow.

The ants march in line by line
Stripping the hive of its amber
Wine
Careless of their benefactors.

Greed blinds them; the sticky white
Pearls stuck to the castle door
Borne
Deep into the bowels of their temple

A doom they consume gladly
Washing it down with their stolen booty
Dreaming
Of future raids, as their lidless eyes

Dim and fade.  Do the bees they starved
Know, in their honeyed heaven, that I've
Avenged them?
Or do they dream of blossoms

And generations that can never, now
Happen?  Will the bee queen remember
Whispering
My love to her kinsmen as they dream

And drone in hives unknown, unimagined?
Can friendship sprout from the seeds of
Slaughter?
Or will vengeance spout

From the generations of ants I've just
Wiped out?  The Lady of Swarms
Was silent
When I sought Her aid

And whether she blesses or condemns
I cannot say.