Like the Bee (after Francis Bacon) by Niyi Osundare

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Not like the spider

draping crowded rooms

in the wanton web

of flimsy looms

a welter of legs spinning

silky bridges, fragile,

for the empty feet of air

Not like the wood-insect

carpentering logs to fashion

its own prison

stockaded pupae peeping

behind bars of enslaving labour

But like the bee

brewing one honey

from the nectars

of several seasons

pleasing the bud

of every clime.