Masque
by Ian Randall Wilson

From the white wood boxes out back
a million wings flap to cool the hive.
All afternoon the low hum of change
and me, reading on the porch.
Because none of us listen, clippings
billow up from the lawn
in retaliation.
This is how a man knows
he's aging: a trick knee locks up,
makes coins disappear,
joins bits of severed rope.
Then the hive keeper arrives
bearing smoke. Bees grow
drunk like party guests and fall asleep.

I swore I'd never rent the family cabin
and here I am again for two weeks in June.
I sit in the chair my father broke for kindling
and read his books, the print bleeding
through from the pages beneath.
In his time there were children in trees
and dogs on swings -- a reversal of fortune
for a man who called himself the great pollinator.
In the first century BC Chen Zao predicted this
in his sayings of the trees:
If nothing is wrong, something is wrong.
I promise to speak no more
about the fall of our great house,
how the eaves hold sessions for a caucus of wasps,
shrubs cry out for discipline,
the walls make forgettable small-talk to a friendless raccoon.

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