3.honeycomb

First, dark called the hatchling turtle   

Moonlight laid its line across the horizon

The hatchling broke through its shell

And emerged from the sand

Then, came moonlight’s turn to cast its line,

Pulling the frantic hatchling to the shore 

Until the hatchling felt the water wash over it

The dark quieted, the moon released the hatchling to the water

The hatchling began to feel a pull within its own body

 

 

Elsewhere, the mouth of the river called out to the salmon she had once breathed life into

"Come home to me. It’s our time"

The salmon swam towards her voice

Echoing out over and over

Until it was only a whisper reverberating in the salmon’s body

The river mouth inhaled

Swallowing the salmon into the body of land

Sucking the salmon into the stomach where it once grew

In the stomach of the land, the salmon dissolved before being born anew

 

Above the body of land, the newly born queen waited for the call of the sun

The nurses who reared her grew impatient and nipped at her to say,

“It’s your turn to care for us. It’s your time.”

And at the sun’s first whisper, the queen went to her

On fragile and untested wings, she was born into the air

And flew until she arrived at a river of bodies,

Suspended in the air just like her

Then, the river current moved towards her

Pouring their lives into her newly formed body

Then, disintegrating

 

The queen returned to her hive

The nurses ushered her in and she began her work

Walking across a network of intersecting lines forming identical cells

And in each cell, she placed a life

A drone, a worker, a queen

An egg which grew into a larva and eventually, emerged from its cell

Each life surfaced at its own time

Each life with duties to fulfill to each other life

Each life intersecting and repeating

 

 

 

I close my eyes and try to listen

I place my hand on my chest, touch my neck,

My skin is soft and I feel the warmth of life underneath

My body starts to listen, a murmur quieter than my own breathing

Standing on my feet, I focus on the murmur and where it calls me

I listen for the voices of the sun and the moon,

the voices of the rivers and the oceans,

the sound of the bodies around me and the body I’m in

I begin to move

Toward light, toward water, toward the pull