The Arrival of the Bee Box

I ordered this, clean wood box 
Square as a chair and almost too heavy to lift.
 
I would say it was the coffin of a midget 
Or a square baby 
Were there not such a din in it.
 

The box is locked, it is dangerous.
 
I have to live with it overnight 
And I can't keep away from it.
 
There are no windows, so I can't see what is in there.
 
There is only a little grid, no exit.
 

I put my eye to the grid.
 
It is dark, dark, 
With the swarmy feeling of African hands 
Minute and shrunk for export, 
Black on black, angrily clambering.
 

How can I let them out? 
It is the noise that appalls me most of all, 
The unintelligible syllables.
 
It is like a Roman mob, 
Small, taken one by one, but my god, together! 

I lay my ear to furious Latin.
 
I am not a Caesar.
 
I have simply ordered a box of maniacs.
 
They can be sent back.
 
They can die, I need feed them nothing, I am the owner.
 

I wonder how hungry they are.
 
I wonder if they would forget me 
If I just undid the locks and stood back and turned into a tree.
 
There is the laburnum, its blond colonnades, 
And the petticoats of the cherry.
 

They might ignore me immediately 
In my moon suit and funeral veil.
 
I am no source of honey 
So why should they turn on me? 
Tomorrow I will be sweet God, I will set them free.
 

The box is only temporary.

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