March 1: Low Blood Sugars, Robert Morgan, "Honey"

I hate honey.  The hatred is fueled by low blood sugars I had as a child diabetic.  I would wake from a particularly bad hypoglycemic reaction to a sludge of honey on my tongue, my entire mouth coated with it.  It wasn't pleasant.

As an adult, I avoid honey at all costs.  I don't put it on cornbread or biscuits.  I don't sweeten oatmeal with it.  It is said that John the Baptist ate locusts and honey in the desert.  If I had been John, I would have been a strict locust eater.

Saint Marty doesn't even like baklava.

Honey

by:  Robert Morgan

Only calmness will reassure
the bees to let you rob their hoard.
Any sweat of fear provokes them.
Approach with confidence, and from
the side, not shading their entrance.
And hush smoke gently from the spout
of the pot of rags, for sparks will
anger them. If you go near bees
every day they will know you.
And never jerk or turn so quick
you excite them. If weeds are trimmed
around the hive they have access
and feel free. When they taste your smoke
they fill themselves with honey and
are laden and lazy as you
lift the lid to let in daylight.
No bee full of sweetness wants to
sting. Resist greed. With the top off
you touch the fat gold frames, each cell
a hex perfect as a snowflake,
a sealed relic of sun and time
and roots of many acres fixed
in crystal-tight arrays, in rows
and lattices of sweeter latin
from scattered prose of meadow, woods.