And I knelt down in the water, cupped the river to my lips. “My mother used to sing this to me,” I said, “and it always put me to sleep. Tell it to the ogress, let her hear it, and perhaps it will do as well for her.”
Now to sleep, now to sleep,
I’ll pluck the flight of doves for you, I’ll gather wool from sheep,
see, little dove, oh! would you believe,
how I murmur to the ogress in her sleep?
I sang verse after verse, and as the river never told me to stop, only dutifully repeated after me, I sang it all through. Songs whispered through rivers have a strange charm, after all, a strange and lilting sorrow from the wave. Slowly, as I neared the end of the song, I saw the sky begin to lighten; I sang it a second time, a third, and soon dawn was spilling out over the river like wine.
“Well,” said my aunt from behind me, “I told you to stand, not kneel, but I suppose it’s all one. What are you doing, all wet?”
I scrambled to my feet, turned around, sheepishly. “Where have you been? I waited, and then—”
“I said at dawn, didn’t I? And here I am, and dawn’s just woken, hasn’t it?”
“But—”
“Here,” she smiled. “I didn’t bring you any raspberries this time, per se, but I found something better: raspberry creamed honey! The most charming young gentleman sold it to me in Prague for a song. He told me it would taste better than a stolen dream. Here, have a lick.”
She was right. It did.
DAY 9
Zambian Honey
Colour: Mulled cider; caramelised orange peels.
Smell: Dry and fresh at once, like a windy wheat field. Sunshine—my first impression. Spring sunshine, golden without heat, because the wind’s stolen it away. But also earth; not damp, but not cracked dry. Earth just shy of being dust, caked gold.
Taste: This is the first of the honeys to have crystallised in the vial; I drew the wand out covered in chunks. Oh, and it is dry and burnished, caramel tones, burnt-sugar tasting and thick, strong; close to buckwheat honey, that distinctive taste, brown. Makes me think of the scent of beeswax, and the darker colours of it, too.
I am cracked dry as the shell of a nut
I am baked brown as skin.
I am the earth, and you and I are kin.
You do not know me, little one
with your wings thin as sky
buzzing like rain. Do not fear me, do not
shy from my heat; see
how I push and strain to grow the sweet
from which you would be fed?
I would sweat
to show you my hard work
but I have no water in me,
no tears, no spit,
and my copper heart is broken,
all my beauties stolen
away.
Do not fly so far, my sweet,
my desert-striped musician;
I would know your little feet
against my cheek, my breast,
beaten hard into a deaf drum
without bone. No one
comes near, their sandals bruise me
my heat is too greedy, too grasping,
it burns as it longs.
But I would not burn you; your wings
would nuzzle the air against my brow
and I would know relief.
No? You shun me so?
Scorn me for my frankincense, my bare trees, their thorns?
I understand. They are not enough
to draw the delicate, the sippers of air,
the makers of sweetness and light. I see
that I am too rough, too brown
for your gold bands and your black.
Only the sun will touch me.
DAY 10
French Rhododendron Honey
Colour: The colour of sugar dissolving in hot water; that white cloudiness, with a faint yellow tint I can only see when looking at it slantwise, to the left of me, not when I hold it up to the light.
Smell: Strange, it has almost no scent at all; it’s also crystallised, so it’s a bit difficult to scoop some out with the wand, but it smells cold with an elusive citrus squirt hovering about its edges.
Taste: There is a kind of sugar cube my grandfather used to give my sister and me every morning when we were small, not so much a cube as a cabochon, irregularly rounded, clear and cloudy by turns. It was called sikkar nabet, which is “plant sugar.” This tastes like it. The honey taste is so pale, so faint, it really is almost sugar water. I’m reminded of maple sap in buckets, right at the beginning of the boiling process that produces maple syrup, where it’s still water enough to be used for steeping tea.
harbour in Penryn
the moon is a sugar-stone
melting on my tongue
quai bas à minuit:
la pleine lune fond contre ma langue
comme une jeune Française.
DAY 11
Blackberry Honey
Colour: Dark amber, almost identical to a Betty Stogs bitter, ascertained by the fact that I held my imp up to a glass of the latter. Let it not be said that I am less than rigorous in my booze-inspired descriptions.
Smell: Faint and mellow; grass and earth, but not cut grass, not that mown-lawn smell, but a scent that’s clean and warm and sweet. Caramel ‘round its edges.
Taste: This tastes like a mouthful of ripe blueberries. Not so much black; there isn’t that tart juiciness of the blackberry. It’s much more the fleshy freshness of blueberries. That texture, in fact.
My body is a knot of limbs
and I dream of Alexander
of a clean bright blade to slice
through the tangle of what is left.
They pulled me from the rubble
like a fabled sword; never
was Excalibur so tarnished, never
did dustier hands reach
for so shattered a hilt.
Blueberries washed the ash from my tongue
after they came; after the metal and the phosphor
that washed us all so red, so white. Perhaps
if we powdered our cheeks so every day
they would come to think us beautiful?
We might ornament their lawns, their homes
that once were ours, their swimming pools
and tourist traps, their cafes and museums.
Behold! The savage Philistine
undone by David’s sling! See
how his mighty giant’s body
is limned in our pale chalk!
The Americans would love it,
buy a t-shirt to take home.
Yesterday I had daughters. Today
I have these berries on my tongue.
I am lucky, they say, to live; to have
blueberries and water, medicine for my wounds.
I am lucky, they say, to breathe
the air thick with stone
that was my house; safe in my lungs
who would think to take it?
I am lucky, they say, to sleep. To dream.
To lay my head where the Son of Man once did
and close my eyes. To think,
tomorrow I may yet wake
to better.
I cannot sleep.
The earth is knotted with screams.
I taste blueberries on my tongue
and dream of nothing.
DAY 12
Red Gum Honey
Colour: Another in the white wine series. This one has much of dawn over rivers to it, says Italian Pinot Grigio to me.
Smell: Pie crusts just shy of brown. A hint of molasses.
Taste: A perfect honey. It’s all gold brown and dark sugar, all mellow, its texture that languorous liquid that makes women sing slow like honey in aching voices. It has this beautiful elasticity to it; I can twirl it around the imp’s wand like I’m using it to sign my name. There’s a vanilla flavour here, that must be the baking association. But it also casts my mind back to the first honeys I tas
ted, and I can’t remember at all, now, when I first tasted honey—I think it must have been in a pita wrap with cheese, that’s how my mother would have served it. I’ll have to ask her. Meantime it’s childhood and my grandmother and the word aassal, and while I’m acutely aware of the each lovelier than the last dynamic in most of these descriptions, I think this is my favourite one to date.
She drinks the light like lemonade,
sips it bit by liquid bit,
until the day falls dark and soft
licked slow-as-honey clean.
Her throat is wide as an open door
inviting, honest, full of song,
and the light, it wants it, tumbles in
like a girl after a rabbit.
She swallows every now and then
licks her lips, parts them for more.
Every now and then, she sleeps.
While she does, the Moonish man
builds his nets, chases his dog.
She would take him by the hand
look into his eyes, and say,
love, you should know better now.
The world is not for catching, love
not for having, not for keeping.
The world is all for sipping, love
so tilt back your head and drink.
But he will never hear her, so
preoccupied with precious plans.
He has no willing ear to lend,
while he mutters on and on.
She wakes to quiet loneliness,
dresses, walks to her windowsill,
and sip by sip, lick by lick,
draws night back home again.
DAY 13
Black Locust Blossom Honey
Colour: Wine-gold dawn.
Smell: White flowers tucked into honeycomb. A watery white flower—lotus, or lily.
Taste: Like fruit and flowers and sugar. This is one to pour onto pancakes; very liquid-sweet, and when I say fruit I mean something between green grapes and yellowgages without the sour skin. Juicy sweet is this.
When first I came to the land of Nod
I sought only the blackest locust flowers;
I did not seek a god.
But the fragrance rising from the sod!
I did not expect such honeyed hours
when first I came to the land of Nod!
I expected blossoms, fruit to prod
with careful fingers, pleasant showers;
I did not seek a god.
The grapes that glistened against the broad
green earth, I ate by tree-topped towers.
When first I came to the land of Nod
I came to study, to slowly plod
my way—but now I gorge, devour.
I did not seek a god
to make me mumble like a clod
as sweet within my mouth went sour.
When first I came to the land of Nod
I did not seek a god.
Day 14 - Raspberry Honey
Colour: The dark gold of apple juice, or strong green tea.
Smell: Brown honey smells, hay and a bit of molasses.
Taste: Texture-wise: tending towards crystallising, but not there yet. Almost gelatinous on the wand, but there are bits dreaming of being sugar clumps when I put it against my tongue. It’s sweet—dries your mouth out. It makes me think of flower petals, of attar, without tasting of any particular kind that I can distinguish.
Night, come shut my wild, wild eyes,
come pillow my head with thistledown
come gentle me to sleep.
I walked so far for you today,
through markets maddened as the dawn
that rose thrashing from its flush-stained sheets
to rip you from the sky.
I found honey to dress your dawn-dealt wounds
jams to sweet your weeping tongue
juniper to numb the pain
and ink to fill you up.
Take these four kisses on your brow
take this velvet winding sheet,
take these words I’ve written you
and swallow them with tea.
I’ve worked so hard for you today,
and I am weary, emptied all—
and all I want is a little bed
with a curved moon swinging
and another in the room, singing.
Day 15 - Hungarian Forest Honey
Colour: A cloudy orange-yellow, which, in the first light I held it to, made me think of extra virgin olive oil. In the current light, more of an apple cider.
Smell: Hay, brown sugar, molasses. I held this vial in hot water for about a minute because it was too crystallised to draw enough out on the wand; prior to heating I thought it smelled a bit resinous, but I can’t find a trace of that now.
Taste: Brown sugar—cookies! No aftertaste—elusive, like it makes an appearance on request, then vanishes when you aren’t paying attention. Also a taste of dark raisins.
I lost a ring to the forest, once.
It was a silver ring, plain as rain, and I loved it. It had been a Christmas gift from a dear friend of our family, and I always wore it on the middle finger of my right hand. I was a small girl then, dazzled by the snow on the dark green leaves, dazzled by the cold and the pink in my sister’s cheeks. It was rare for us to see it, living in the south as we did, by the sea. But winter in the mountains, where the cedars crowded the slopes like a curious audience, was something else altogether.
The day was sunny. The snow sparkled with it. It was new fallen and a little damp, just enough to pack into snowballs. We played, my sister and I, we rolled about in it, wet our hair, our necks, laughed as we shivered. We rolled a snowman together, and I went into the forest to find branches for his arms.
It was darker there; I scrabbled about the pine and cedar roots, dug into the snow with bare fingers for a prize. To my delight, I found pine branches with a fringe of green needles at the tip that would serve for fingers. I ran back to my sister, laughing that our snowman would be a gardener, would make things grow out of winter, and perhaps, when he melted, he would season the spring with his bones.
She asked, “Where is your ring?”
I looked at my hands, and the laughter caught in my throat like thorns. It was gone. My pink-tipped fingers were bare.
I looked around the snowman, I retraced my steps to the forest. I kicked the snow, trying not to cry, failing. I looked, and looked, and couldn’t find it.
My mother was too kind to show me disappointment. She gave me anise tea sweetened with honey, since my throat was sore with crying. She told me to hope for spring, said that we’d return then, and perhaps if I hoped very hard I would find it after the snow had melted—but not to expect that I would. Hope for the best and expect the worst, she said, and tucked me in to bed.
I hoped. I hoped as hard as I had for anything. I felt it was a nightmare, this loss, and if I shut my eyes against it tightly enough it would fade like a dream in the dawn. I would pass hours in which I thought nothing of it during the day, but every night I would remember the lost ring, think of it alone in a forest, rusting and cold, and I would cry a little, and hope a lot.
The winter passed as winters do, and on a bright day in March we returned to the mountains, to the forest. I asked my sister to come with me, to hold my hand as I looked; I was almost afraid of how unhappy I would be, but I told myself to expect nothing, to expect pine needles and earth and nothing else, no metal glinting between rock and root.
We stepped into the forest together. We looked around. Everything looked so different without the snow, looked so much more attentive. We whispered together, because it seemed rude to raise our voices when so many trees were doubtless holding conversations too slow and quiet for us to hear.
Then we saw it.
It seemed an odd bush, at first, but it was in fact a tiny tree. Its trunk was pale as birch, paler, snow-pale and bright, with something very like veins flushing silver beneath the bark.
Ri
ngs grew from it like apples. Pale rings, dark rings, green rings and brown. Some of wood, some of bone, some of clay—and one, just one, of silver.
My sister said it was the snowman who’d done it, said that she saw two pine branches nearby that looked very familiar. I don’t know, myself. All I know is that I lost a ring to the forest, once, and it was kind enough to give it back.
DAY 16
Blueberry Honey
Colour: The exact shade and clarity of apple juice from concentrate.
Smell: Juicy-sweet, with such a faint blueberry scent I could almost be sure I was imagining it. But I’m more sure it’s there.
Taste: Blue and cold. Water on a bright day, so blue as to challenge those who would call the water colourless, a sky-mirror. It’s a deep blue, and it’s a liquid honey, the flexible kind that spindles itself into shapes when stretched. Active, passionate, deep.
I knew you, once.
I knew your hair, the black heat of it. I knew the turn of your instep.
I knew the shadow at your breast on the paper of your skin,
and it drew me in like ink.
I knew the twist of your lips into a secret fit to kiss,
the belly-warm laugh that drew the moth in me too near.
I knew I did not know enough, and you knew how to be kind;
dimmed to push me back, keep my dusty wings unsinged.
But how beautiful you were, how I hovered ‘round the glow!
Wanting only to touch, to sip the honey of that heat
without feeding it. My own body so small, so frail,
so simple and so brown,
cindered in the glory of your consummation—
it did not seem a trade worth making.
You knew this, once. I sought to live
by your wisdom, but close by, close as I could dare.
Until you said—until your honey mouth
sang flame and hematite to me—
come near, my little love, come nearer now to me,
I flicker and I dim, and I gutter now and then,
I hunger and I long, and you flutter prettily,
and your dust has known such air, I so long to breathe it in.
Come nearer, my winged girl, come nearer now to me.
The Honey Month Page 3