Poem For Saturday

by Zoe Pollock

From "A Place for the Bees" from Virgil's Georgics, by David Ferry:

And there should be a limpid spring nearby,
Or a moss-edged pool, or else a little brook,
Almost unseen, making its way through the grass,
And a big palm tree or oleaster shading
The vestibule of the place where the bees have settled,
So when the kings of the hive lead the swarm forth
In the welcoming season, and glad to be free at last,
The youthful bees are capering and playing,
There'll be a stream bank or a pond bank there,
Where they can escape the unaccustomed heat
And where the leaves of a tree can shelter them.

You can read the full poem and hear the author read it in English and in the original Latin version here.

(Image by Flickr user Cuba Gallery)