VI—The Stare’s Nest By My Window

The bees build in the crevices Of loosening masonry, and there The mother birds bring grubs and flies. My wall is loosening, honey bees Come build in the empty house of the stare. We are closed in, and the key is turned On our uncertainty; somewhere A man is killed, or a house burned, Yet no clear fact to be discerned: Come build in the empty house of the stare A barricade of stone or of wood; Some fourteen days of civil war; Last night they trundled down the road That dead young soldier in his blood: Come build in the empty house of the stare. We had fed the heart on fantasies, The heart’s grown brutal from the fare, More substance in our enmities Than in our love; oh, honey-bees Come build in the empty house of the stare.