The Stinging Truth

        The poem entitled "The Bees" by Audre Lorde is one that is a poem that I found particularly fascinating. In this poem, the author is able to wrap up multiple critiques of society, and yet tell a fascinating story at the same time. She captures both emotion and action, bringing them together in a more narrative kind of way, something that some poems can struggle to do.

        From the very start of the poem, we can see that she is critical of society today. "In the street outside a school/ what the children learn/ possesses them." Here we see that this tendency to be destructive toward nature has been learned. It is something these little boys have been taught, most likely that bees are dangerous and are a menace to people. This is a common view, and many people fail to realize that most animals are not a menace to humans, and you leave them alone, they will do the same.

        A contrast is shown between the boys and bees they are attacking. "The bees, buzzing in their anger,/ are slow to attack." Unlike the boys, who are more than willing to violently attack and destroy the bee hive, the bees here seem hesitant. Perhaps it is because bees die once they sting, and this can be a symbol of sorts. It is so easy for humans to go around destroying nature in various ways, with little to no consequences to them, and yet it often takes a great effort for nature to fight back. Often, humans are more destructive towards nature than nature is to them.

        Once the school guards come, it is evident that they do not care about the hive, further re-enforcing the boys violent tendencies. "the advance upon the hive/ beating the almost finished rooms of wax apart/ mashing the new tunnels in/" It is curious that the boys do not get in trouble for their actions, but rather the school guards, who one would expect to be the more mature and level headed than the group of boys, stoop down to their same level and attack the bee hive, just like the boys are doing.

        The girls, meanwhile, stand off, watching. "Curious and apart/ four little girls look on in fascination/" Perhaps the distance between the two genders is meant to represent that they are often opposite side of the spectrum. While the group of boys are loud, violent, and causing a ruckus, the girls sit off to the side, quiet and contemplative.

        Then we come upon, what I feel to be, the most fascinating lines of the entire poem. "learning a secret lesson/ trying to understand their own destruction/". These lines baffle me, and I am unsure of what exactly they mean. Could it mean that the girls understand that the destruction of nature will eventually lead to their own demise if it goes to far, since everything on this planet is in some way connect? Or could it be addressing a more societal view, that the girls are trying to understand that, in the view of the author, they will be trampled over by society because of their gender? These lines are interesting and thought provoking, and perhaps Lorde meant to keep them ambiguous, leaving it up for interpretation.

        The poem continues on, saying "'Hey, the bees weren't making any trouble!'/ and she steps across the feebly buzzing ruins/ to peer up at the empty, grated nook/ 'We could have studied honey making!'". In this excerpt we see that it is the girls, and sadly not even the adults that see the truth. They understand that the bees meant no harm, and it was simply the boys acting out that made them angry.

        We also see here that this particular girl, the one who is speaking, understand the value of them. It is curious that out of all the things she might have said about their value, she mentions they could have learned from them. This is something we often lose sight of. Many times humans think that nature has nothing to offer, when in fact, if we take the time and look close, we can see that nature often has much to teach us.

        In addition to making me think, this poem also impacted me personally, in that I do not enjoy people calling certain animals "pests". Even the mice that we catch in our traps at my home, I cannot help to feel sorry for. They weren't doing anything wrong or with any malice, simply trying to survive, and yet we kill them, and in a rather cruel way at that. I think that many times, people simply do not like certain animals because of reputation they have, such as that bees sting people. If people were more reflective and less reactionary, and too the time to learn about nature and try to learn things of it, perhaps we would have less exterminations, less needless killing of animals, and more harmony with nature and all creatures.

Work Cited: Lorde, Audrey. "The Bees". Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Poetry, edited by Camille T. Dungy, University of Georgia Press, 2009, 78-79.