Author Information
The Bee Tree in Winter
Folder:
For Broken Hearts I died a hundred deaths today,
forced a thousand leaden steps.
Shed a million stinging tears,
rent innumerable shuddered breaths.
On that bitter January day
clasping cold-numbed hands,
we solemnly surrendered to the winter wind
our only remaining hope.
"If you love something, set it free," right?
Such an inane platitude.
Conventional wisdom cannot apply
to this unconventional thing we created;
this pure organic incarnation, deliberately devoid
of fences, labels, boxes, definitions.
Fuck "set it free."
If you love something,
protect it like the last ounce of water
in the goddamn desert.
Hold it tight beneath the roughest skies.
Honor it as your own flesh:
that's love.
Yet there, by the frozen lake, we set our hope free.
We slid it, naked, out onto the thin ice
Abandoned it to the savage wind
because it had become a snapping, snarling thing,
because it had drawn blood
innumerable times.
We left it there, squalling
as we resolutely walked away.
And if, my love, somehow, someday
our hope finds its way home
Will we embrace it still,
in all its wild-eyed, feral unpredictability?
Will we welcome it, with all the pain it's sure to bring?
We both know we will.
