It has to be a thin world surely if you ask for
an emblem at every turn, if you cannot see bees
arcing and mining the soft decaying galaxies
of the laden apricot tree without wanting
symbols – which of course are manifold – symbols
of so much else? What’s amiss with simply the huddle
and glut of bees, with those fuzzed globes
by the hundred and the clipped out sky
beyond them and the leaves that are black
if you angle the sun directly behind them,
being themselves, for themselves?

read at Tuesday Poem

Tagged: apricot trees, bees, Being here Vincent O'Sullivan, contemporary poetry, New ZEaland poet laureate, New Zealand poetry, poem, poetry, Vincent O'Sullivan, Vincent O'Sullivan poem