Our neighbour, a beekeeper, bee-tender, bee-guardian sits outside everyday, wind, rain, or sun, watching the aura of honeybees around the hives he keeps outside his home. I think the beating of his heart must sound like the hum of a hive.

When we moved here in January it was bitterly cold. All but two of his hives had succumbed to it. Over summer he saved two wild swarms and the existing ones thrived. Now the little town of bees is overflowing with life. After a flurry of energy a few weeks ago, and a shower of golden bee droppings, the colonies began to slow down, draw inward. They could sense what was coming.

The air is becoming ever colder now. The first frost has come. I stand on the doorstep most mornings and look out to the hills that lie still in witness to a final blaze of life. On this day it was misty, silvery. Lying on the step next to my foot was a honeybee. I picked up her weightless body, her legs neatly folded beneath her and her amber tinted wings spread as though in flight. I placed her at the base of a lilac tree, the soil scattered with the leavings of house martins, as well as their nest that had fallen in a storm, another piece of spring come and gone.

All this to say I was reminded of something I wrote in spring, when the hills were white with blackthorn and we were lapping up the light, and it feels like a full circle.

~~~

I pick a rabbit-hearted lilac and set it between my bed and the open window, sleeping in its silken scent.

Bed and garden blur. A honeybee, legs heavy with gold, drinks from its four-petal stars.

She tries to leave.

The window - a portal to me, a cage to her.