The History of Honey

bees, poetry,

A thousand bees are drinking nectar and collecting pollen in my garden this week, so it’s time I posted this poem I’ve been tasting for a while. Twice this week I went out to photograph the buzzers, but most of the time with little luck. They are too busy to pose for me!

THE HISTORY OF HONEY

“The History of Honey” — by an aged mandarin,
And I bought it for the pictures of the burnished bees therein.

For the dainty revelations, masquerading up and down,
For the odor of the sandalwood that talked of China-town.

According to the mandarin, the Oriental bees
Were the first to hoard their honey in the mountain cavities.

In the ages of antiquity, each summer afternoon,
They flew in golden convoys to the mountains of the moon.

And there, in caves by cataracts, where nothing could annoy,
Poured gallons in the caverns when Confucius was a boy.

Many mountains bulged with honey stored before the days of Ming,
From each crevice dripped the essence of a very precious thing.

Imprisoned in this honey, aging as the aeons wane,
Are the souls of all the flowers, waiting to be born again:

Every lotus, every poppy, every tulip, every rose.
And those who sip the honey slip beyond all human woes,

Dream again of youth’s digressions, index misty ways of joy,
Turn unto the pagan pastimes of Confucius — as a boy.

Doubtless there are yet secreted some divine distilleries
Overflowing with the wonder worth a dozen dynasties.

But the mandarin, he made no map, contented in old age
To draw the clinging love scenes of the bees on every page.

There he found an inspiration antedating all the Mings,
And he got the ancient essence of the very sweetest things.

-Nathalia Crane

14 thoughts on “The History of Honey”

  1. This poem turns honey into something mythic rather than ordinary — a kind of imagined history where bees, flowers, and even human figures like Confucius blend into legend.

    It feels less like natural history and more like dreaming through a hive.

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    Reply

    1. Do you eat honey from a particular flower, or a generic “wildflower” honey? Is there such a thing as heather honey available in Scotland? A wildflower honey of course would be a different mix and flavor depending on where the bees are drinking… I found out that honeys have different sugar content depending on the flowers, as well.

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      1. There is heather honey here as we have a lot of heather around us but the heather is not out yet, so I am enjoying local blossom honey from hives just a few miles up the road from our house. I bought the first pot of this year’s honey at the producers’ market this morning.

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