The Ballad of the Bachelor Beekeeper

The Mutaitho hill zigzags its way to the borderlines of the sky And to the opposite poses the historic Muilu hill once a shrine; Now there between slithers the Kimongo River where huge rocks lie; It’s on the banks of this river where the bachelor beekeeper lives. His bald head is not worthy a ballad Nor are his words so many to deserve a hoot, It is his bee keeping zeal that stirs your blood; An enterprise he’s run for years thirty and three. And don’t think of the sophisticated box hives Where you ferry the insects and lock them in, He fells a log and hollows it all with his knives, Till a home for bees he fashions there. Not the low-lying things folks call hives, Well-smoothed wooden objects lodged up the twigs Of the most slippery trees with leaves like chives Where no cunning badger would ever dare venture. And he does his seasonal harvesting in the dead of the night, While softer men curl to listen to the snores of their wives; A night traveler will see his hairless head reflect the moonlight And think they’ve spotted the nightly escapades of a ghost. Now why he remains a bachelor at sixty and three Is a secret only known to his beekeeping mind, Perhaps nothing charms him more than a flourishing hive, Perchance no girl would enchant more than the honeyed bee.