Shard

After the ravages that took the bees by storm
and cleansed the clotted ceiling space

so they’d be no danger to the kids who slept
in that bedroom all summer, I discovered

in the charred ruins of their intricate city
a hand-size fragment of honeycomb, still

clear gold and full of good honey glinting
in its papery stiff hexagonals, which I took

the tip of my tongue to and tasted the pure
spirit of sweetness alive there, like words

from a letter you’d thought you destroyed — just
a scrap of phrases, but enough to call back

exactly what happened, and the good of it.

— Eamon Grennan