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The Honey Seller, 1800 by Sally Evans
Under the Castle gate
bringing my stores to the kitchen
I am asked to wait.
Honey shines in crocks in my basket.
The gardener wants to know, he says,
if this is a bee-skep hole.
Can we keep bees in it?
He leads me round the old bowls green,
shows me a stone-cut shallow niche.
Am I expected to explain
this is no bee ledge, but a sconce
for a graven image? Dare I be the one
to point out an older, Catholic custom
where queens and kings, and those before them
followed religions no longer approved?
Time has taught the uses of silence.
I answer: Grassy slopes favour the bees,
clover in fields, thyme in the stones,
the moors of heather and shrub myrtle.
Meanwhile, I would not fetch my subjects here.
for they are outside workers, like myself.
I bring their produce to your gate.
The kitchen pays me fairly, then
hands me last time's empty crocks --
He nods. On to your business then, he says.
Today I will not stop to gossip,
but flee downhill in daylight,
back to my far-flung bees.
Sally Evans
