Matthew Paris Maps the Move of the Hive
Matthew Paris, 13th-century monk at St. Albans,
created the first inland maps of England.
"After they have swarmed, the bees lose all memory
of their old hive and its location."
Sue Hubbell, A BOOK OF BEES
He has barely hauled himself out
from under the stifling wing
of another night's Vigil, when
the notion flies at him, interrupting
Lauds. It is even more seductive
than the charting of the route
from Dover to Newcastle-upon-Tyne-
a task that had called him, again
and again, to extend his range;
to flee the clotted air of his cell,
to traipse, year after year, through
entire calendars of flowers.
Furze, that feeds the first bees:
its yellow bloom set the heath ablaze
a month before the shepherds' torches
kindled it again in March. April,
and the slim lanterns of the hazel
sizzled, acid-green, each storm-dark
afternoon. Mornings in July,
the peevish white eyes of the holly
spied him out, as if what they saw
might quench the gossip-thirst
of spiked leaf-tongues that leaped,
acetylene. Late summer, hunter's bane,
conclaves of loosestrife that blurred
the edges of the ditches with a purple
smoke. By October, ivy and sea aster
(muck-button, some called it, smothering
a giggle behind their hands) smoldered
their last, as the brittle thumb and
forefinger of winter closed to pinch
them out. How he had traced, retraced
the fussy itinerary, noting each abbey
along a stripmap whose stops
could now be called off as predictably
as the breviary's marked hours.
Mixt, Terce, Sext . . . noon, and the idea
crowds out every other thought... .
None, Vespers, Compline. Haec nox est,
this very night! While the others
wrestle with the Hour of Fear,
Matthew Paris will prepare
to begin his new map: the move
of the hive he watched break loose
from one of the beeyard's thatched
skeps, just two days past.
In a reversal of fire's feast,
the swarm's rising cinder cloud
had regathered to form its whole
cloth, a cloak it draped, quiescent,
around a nearby branch. On this
living parchment, Matthew Paris
plans to sketch the path to the new
nest site. Discarding ink and quill,
he will dance the compass, as he has
seen the bees do, on the blessed
body of the swarm. A quickstep.
Fast, then faster. If they find it fit,
the mass will answer his petition with deep
wing-buzz, a shrilling pipe
not unlike the refectory's noisy tang
of spoons rung against the belled
lips of bowls. Now, spoons raised
partway to their mouths, his brothers
pause. To see a body, lifted, poised.
Now, the flesh-of-the-many
tests its map of heaven. Not
until this moment, the abbey small
below him-in fact, almost lost
to sight- does Matthew grasp the first
rule of his new order. To leave
home requires him to forget it.
Structure
77 lines · 14 stanzas